


It's Time to Talk

by Themistoklis



Category: Fake News, Misc. Comics RPF, Strangers With Candy RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Aromantic, Asexual, Asexuality, Happy Ending, Multi, queerplatonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-10
Updated: 2011-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/pseuds/Themistoklis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this. Stephen and Jon need to talk about themselves ... but Jimmy needs to be there, too. Janeane hasn't thought much about talking, but Denis has. And who knows what Amy and Paul are up to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Flashbacks are in italics. "Stevie" (in the fic) is the name Stephen went by as a little kid. Also, several characters in this story are asexual. [Hallelujah It's Raining Labels](http://jilliancottle.com/2011/hallelujah-its-raining-labels/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hallelujah-its-raining-labels), this [Psychology Today article](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/200912/asexuals-who-are-they-and-why-are-they-important), this [Lexicon](http://unicornsareace.wordpress.com/relevant-terms/%22), and this definition of [queerplatonic](http://meloukhia.tumblr.com/post/2868581031/word-of-the-day-queerplatonic) may be useful if you want to look into asexuality and related concepts.
> 
>  **Thanks:** Thanks to [](http://politicette.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**politicette**](http://politicette.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://paperscribe.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**paperscribe**](http://paperscribe.dreamwidth.org/) for in-depth beta services and everyone who commented on the first few thousand words of this story and told me to keep going with it. Thanks to [](http://anais-rhys.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**anais_rhys**](http://anais-rhys.dreamwidth.org/) for the wonderful art, which is [here](http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y85/thngwhtsqks/My%20Artwork/d28ff492.jpg).

_Stevie is in the real kindergarten this year. He takes a nap at school and he does not go home on the bus at noon with the transitional classes. He learns how to write his name both Stevie and Stephen. On holidays his class gets to visit other classrooms._

 _He takes Jimmy into the first-grade classroom at the corner of the building with him. They hold hands and try to look taller than they are, and Stevie hides behind a potted plant until Jon has his back turned to someone else._

 _Then he scurries up to the pink-and-white heart-covered box on Jon's desk, drops in his Valentine's card, and runs with Jimmy back into the hallway._

 _Later Jon gives Stevie a lollipop with a sugar heart on it._

\---

"Sometimes I wonder if you're really real," Jon says, slowly, to a lot of laughing.

He's watching Stephen hang upside down from a bar tied precariously to a tree branch in the Colbert backyard. Stephen's glasses fell off some time before Jon got there, which could've been fifteen seconds ago and could've been fifteen minutes ago, Jon isn't sure. With Stephen things like this are always hard to tell. A rope that should've snapped before he got up there is actually, somehow, holding all his weight.

Jon ruffles Stephen's hair, which makes him laugh again. "Why are you hanging upside down?" he asks, a little smile creeping onto his own face.

"It was there," Stephen says, spreading his hands.

Leaning down (but not that far), Jon kisses the tip of Stephen's nose. "So did you text me to help get you down?" he asks. He raises an eyebrow for emphasis.

Stephen twiddles his thumbs. He looks a little younger without his glasses, his face all innocent and open, and Jon wants to sit down and stare up at him for a while so he can learn how to act that. He doesn't know how Stephen manages to keep such a straight face when Jon's pretty sure he's plotting the downfall of empires, or at least the easiest ways to get out of attending a pep rally.

"Kinda," Stephen finally says, sheepishly.

It takes a couple of minutes, during which Stephen asks several times if his face is turning weird colors, but eventually Jon figures out that if he kneels down on the ground, Stephen can put his hands on Jon's shoulders and then Jon can grip Stephen's elbows and stand up. Then Stephen can wriggle around until his legs come off the bar he tied to the tree, and the landing for his feet is a lot softer than it would've been for his head.

"Thanks, Jon," Stephen says, looping his arms around Jon's neck. "You've rescued me from concussion and a lifetime of my mom saying 'I told you so.'" He bats his eyelashes, which seem bigger outside of his glasses.

"Your mom has a lot of reasons to say 'I told you so' already," Jon says, giggling.

"I know, but now she has one less."

After Stephen scoops up his glasses they walk down to the edge of the lot, which goes from grass to pine straw to trees pretty quickly. Jon's parked on the still-dirt stretch of road that bumps up against the back of the Colbert family's neighborhood. On this side of town, there are a few patches of road like that, that nobody's cared enough to pave yet. Jon guesses that by the time they all have kids, everything will be paved. Of course, this forest and the creek in it might be gone, too.

Jon thinks about things like that a lot. Right now, he finds a tree to lean against, and looks into the shadows under the trees instead of at his car. He spins his keys around, making tinny metallic clinks when the metal hits the tree and dull thuds when it thumps against his thigh.

"Did you wanna stay out here today?" Stephen asks, pressing a palm between Jon's shoulders. "I could go back in and get some water bottles."

"School starts in a couple weeks."

Jon remembers walking out here when they were kids. There used to be a fence, because Mrs. Colbert couldn't keep her eye on Stephen all the time -- he moved too fast. But then it flooded one year, and the fence got moldy, with weird things growing on it. So Jon brought Denis and Janeane over and they ripped it out while Stephen watched from the back porch with a pair of binoculars, too sick with the flu to get out of his rocking chair.

"We could run back in there and see if that old house is still there," Stephen suggests. He rests his chin on Jon's shoulder. "Bring our sleeping bags and a water purifier. Come out only when we run out of canned ravioli."

The way he breathes 'ravioli' into Jon's ear makes Jon smile. "My mom would sign off on that as long as I still dropped by to use the mailbox and send off the college applications," he says.

Stephen presses his lips together and shakes his head mutely, making a gesture like he's sweeping the image away. "College isn't fun like an old run-down haunted shack in the middle of the woods," he says.

He slides his arms around Jon's middle, and Jon stops spinning his keys. He can hear the way that Stephen's stuck out his lower lip. Fake pouting is a pretty good cover for real pouting, Jon figures, when you don't want anyone to call you on it.

So he doesn't. "Since when has the shack been haunted?" And acting like you're saving someone else's feelings is a good way to avoid conversations you don't want to have, either.

"Dunno. Probably a couple years ago."

"I don't remember a ghost when we were there." Jon links his fingers with Stephen's and rubs his thumb over Stephen's ring finger. He knows his boyfriend's been saving up for a class ring this year. Jon got his last year.

Stephen sniffs and raises his chin. "It was shy," he declares. "It didn't want to come out with us noisy brats around."

Snickering, Jon gives Stephen's hand a squeeze. "Are you admitting you were a brat?" he teases.

Stephen lets go of him, pulling back abruptly before stepping around in front of Jon and pushing him back up against the tree trunk. It's not exactly bad, so Jon just goes a little limp, his head lolling back against the bark so he can look straight up at Stephen. There are a couple of fading mid-summer freckles on Stephen's cheeks, just under his glasses, and Jon has the brief urge to lick them.

"Who says I'm not still a brat?" Stephen asks, cocking one eyebrow.

Jon brushes a thumb over his freckles. "Why, Mr. Colbert, you're an angel," he breathes, in the exaggerated Southern accent that sounds better than Stephen's, when Stephen's trying.

With a blink, Stephen smiles lopsidedly. "Yeah," he says. Jon giggles.

"Let's go to the store," he says, half-pushing half-dragging Stephen over to the car. His keys swing from where he looped them over his fingers. "I'll get you a soda."

"And some school supplies?"

"All the composition notebooks you can carry."

"Oh, Jon. You know the way right into a man's heart."

\---

 _Stephen has a bandana tied over his hair and is stretched out on his stomach, his arms as far as they can reach underneath his brother's bed. His orange sleeves are all covered with dust and he keeps sneezing._

 _When his fingers hit the stack of magazines, he thinks that maybe he's found some old comic books, and he yanks them out, eager to have a break from cleaning._

 _But these are definitely not comic books. He flips through them, but he doesn't see anything interesting, though there are lots of different pictures. Even the ads are … specialized._

 _Stephen puts the magazines back where he found them and decides that his brother's side of the room is clean now. Then he goes to work on the hallway._

\---

It's late and Stephen's the only kid who still lives here full-time, so he goes into the cavernous (it seems that way, anyway, with only two of the seats at the table filled most of the time) kitchen to wash and dry the dishes from dinner, which seems like it was forever ago.

In the middle of scrubbing a speck off his mom's favorite saucepan, the stairs creak, and he turns around to watch his Mom walking down in her slippers. She's still in her day clothes, though, and Stephen had thought she was going upstairs to settle into bed.

"Hey," he says, spotting the thin, hardback book in her hand. "The library's closed at this hour," he jokes. "But I could return your book in the morning."

A small smile creases over her mouth. She tucks the book under her arm and sits down at the corner of the table, pulling out the chair catty-corner from her. Stephen dips his hands into the soapy sink water and bites the inside of his cheek when the hot water stings a scrape on his knuckle.

Mom pats the tabletop in front of the other chair. "Sit down for a second, hun."

Stephen lets his hands soak for another second before pulling them out and drying them on a clean rag. He brings the rag with him over to the table. It's not much in the way of comforting, but it does give him something to do with his hands. He sets them in his lap and twists the rag around his fingers.

When Mom sets the book down on the table, Stephen gulps. It's orange, and it says _It's Time to Talk: Safe Sex_ on the cover in awkward yellow-and-black letters. There's a little pink triangle in the bottom corner, and some more writing that says _Gay and lesbian friendly!_

"I know this is Jon's last year in high school," Mom says, folding her hands together.

Stephen sets his heels on one of the chair rungs. It'll keep him from jiggling his knee until his mom accuses him of drinking coffee again. He shrugs, mutely, and tries not to stare at the book, but it's like a giant, lumpy pumpkin plopped down next to the napkins. And it's not pumpkin season.

"We've never really … discussed the topic before," Mom says. She takes a breath and tucks a wisp of hair behind her hear. Stephen starts studying his nails. "And Lord knows, I'm not an expert in … what you'd experience, but I do know _some_ things…"

"Mom!" Stephen's ears flush red.

She turns pink, too, and clears her throat, tugging the book towards her. Stephen thinks it must be as lousy a substitute for a teddy bear as his kitchen rag is. They'd both probably be better off curling up in their own rooms with a stuffed animal and listening to the radio.

"The thing is, I know how it is, being a teenager," Mom finally says. She lets go of the book and touches one of Stephen's hands. "I know you and I aren't the same, but I also know… that your school programs don't provide for people like you and Jon, hun." She takes a breath. "So if you have any questions, I'm here."

Stephen stares at her nails.

\---

 _The permanent markers come from a box under Kiwi's bed. Denis isn't supposed to dig in his older brother's things, but he needed something cool because Janeane is coming over. She's only been in town for a week and walks to the elementary school all by herself._

 _They together sit on the brown blanket Denis carefully spread over the top of his bed, his mom having helped him to tuck it in at the corners because he's not tall enough to reach the far side of the bed yet. Mom says one day he will be but he isn't sure he believes her._

 _"My teacher said that, those make you sick," Denis says, leaning over so he can watch her draw a squiggly sun on her shin._

 _Janeane laughs and draws a ring of flames around his ankle that don't wash off for a week._

\---

Denis sits outside of Janeane's house for ten minutes before she shows up in the doorway, and then she stands on the porch for a minute lacing up her boots before she starts down to the driveway. He honks his horn before she gets close enough to shout, and she stops, staring blankly at him.

He points to his shoulder, then to hers, and she keeps staring until he tugs at his sleeve. Then she makes a frustrated sound and pounds back into the house, coming out again in a couple of minutes with a t-shirt over the tank top she'd been wearing before.

"Fucking dress code," she shouts from her room on the second floor. Denis snickers into his hand.

Practically hopping into the car through the open window, Janeane tosses her backpack in the back seat. She's too busy pulling her hair back into a twist to talk to him yet, and they're out of her neighborhood before she buckles her seatbelt in place.

Denis turns the radio off. "I see Rosie's all healed up."

"Just in time to be covered for the next one hundred and eighty days," Janeane says, rolling her eyes. She tugs her sleeve up and touches the new tattoo of the riveter, sighing a little. "Maybe if we hold queer club meetings across the road this year someone will actually know about her."

The corner of Denis's mouth turns up. "It's not called the queer club, Janeane. Remember? We voted on a new name last year--"

Janeane turns her nose up, literally, and says a couple of words that Denis can't even spell. "I am not calling it LGBTQute. I don't care how many votes it got."

"Thirteen. That's over half the club," Denis says. Janeane just makes a rude gesture that makes him want to lean over and knock their heads together, but he's driving, and he can't take his eyes off the road for that long. He waits until they're idling at a red light to add, "I voted for that too."

She sputters. _"Why?"_

"'Cause I knew it'd piss you off," he drawls, sweetly.

She punches him in the shoulder, and he winces. But with everything so far, it's the highlight of his morning. The car behind them honks because he's still rubbing at the spot when the light turns green, and Janeane flips the other driver off as Denis gets the car back into gear.

Smirking, Denis says, "You're a woman after my own heart, Janeane."

Janeane leans back in her seat and puts her feet up on the dashboard. There's a little scuff mark from where her boots rest that Denis has never been able to clean off, possibly because he's never tried with anything more than a damp cloth.

"Are we picking Jon up?" Janeane asks, eyeing the St. Christopher medal pinned to the passenger-side sun shade. Denis had to move it after a cop told him he wasn't supposed to hang things from the rearview mirror. The silver chain that it hung from went back to his mother, though Denis thinks she has plans to get him another medal to wear around his neck.

He shakes his head. "Got his car fixed. I haven't gotten any calls this morning so I guess it got him to school all right."

"How long do you wanna bet before we have to pick him up off the side of the road?"

"What 'we'? Last time I checked you didn't have a car, Garofalo."

Janeane smirks. "Of course I do. I'm riding in it now."

Denis just blushes and tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

\---

Jon sleeps through his alarm, wakes up late, and is tripping down the stairs, pulling his shirt on and blabbing on to his mom about how he doesn't have time for breakfast when he notices her smirking over the top of her coffee mug. Then he looks at the clock above the phone and notices, well, it's fifteen minutes slower than his alarm clock.

He blushes a little, smoothes out his t-shirt, and slinks over to the fridge. "Bagel and cream cheese?"

"Please," his mom says.

The thing about his mom and him having nearly the same hours -- the elementary school starts and ends an hour later than the high school -- is that sometimes Jon can take her into work and pick her up after. It saves gas and gives them a little quiet time together. The elementary school parking lot is always packed the first week, so Jon will drive for both of them until it's easier for her to find a spot.

"I'll be staying a bit late today. I have carpool duty, so I won't be able to tidy up the classroom until that all clears out."

"Okay," Jon says. He digs out the cream cheese, pops two bagel tops into the toaster, and pulls down two plates from the cabinet. "I'm driving Stephen and Jimmy home, anyway, so I'll just sit at Stephen's house until it's time to come get you."

Mom sips her coffee and makes a little noise, nodding. Jon finishes putting cream cheese on the bottom halves of their bagels, pulls the toasted tops out, and smears them too. He carries both the plates over to the table and sits down across from his mom, slurping up some cooled, leftover coffee he'd poured from the pot next to the sink.

It's a couple of minutes into breakfast before he glances up and catches Mom staring at him. She puts her coffee mug down and takes a bite of her bagel, and Jon waits, mouth full, until she's finished.

"Have you got those scholarship applications ready to mail today?" she asks, finally.

Jon flushes and pushes some crumbs around his plate. "Um, no." He clears his throat. "I can stop by the post office before I get you."

"It's just that some of them are due quite soon, aren't they?"

"Yeah." Jon stuffs a chunk of bagel into his mouth and chews slowly.

Mom looks at her watch and takes another sip of her coffee. "Well, I've read your essays, and I think you'll do fine."

In spite of himself, Jon smiles a little. His cheeks turn pink. "Thanks, Mom."

"Just… as you start to narrow down college choices, don't limit yourself to in-state schools, okay?" she murmurs. She reaches across the table and covers Jon's hand with hers for a moment, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze.

The last bite of bagel feels like a rock in Jon's stomach. He has a map in his room with little pins to mark where the colleges he's considering are. They're grouped in a tight cluster. "Right," he says. He squeezes her hand back.

Smiling, Mom pushes back from the table. "I'll just grab my purse and I'm ready to go," she says, carrying her things over to the sink.

Jon nods mutely, doing the same, and then scrambles around to make sure he has all the stuff he needs to mail stuffed in between his notebooks and binders. He'll wait to go to the post office after he's left Stephen's house that afternoon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.

_It's been raining for three days. Stevie thinks it's going to rain forever and ever. He presses his face up against the window and when he breathes out, fog spreads over the glass._

 _Playing alone inside is not fun, but he cannot ask for a ride to Jimmy's. All the cars that go by crawl through the puddles and still splash waves._

 _Stevie wonders if he could borrow his sister's galoshes._

\---

"I mean, it was a nice gesture," Stephen says, his face pressed into his locker door. The ridges of the vent hurt his forehead and make his glasses dig into his skin, but he's too tired to lean back.

Jimmy is busy trying to open his locker. They always get to school early -- Jimmy can't work the twist locks very well, and it takes a lot of practice for him to open his locker on his own. Every year he spends at least the first five minutes telling Stephen how the locker combinations stay the same every year, so if you remembered your combo from last year, you could just break into the new student's locker, blah, blah…

"Isn't one of your older sibs gay? Couldn't she have just, you know… directed you to--" Jimmy sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and squints, trying to wriggle the lock open.

"Sister."

"Ah. So even less experience than your mom--"

Stephen groans and taps his forehead against his locker a couple of times. "Oh my God, my mom does not have _experience!"_

Jimmy giggles, and his hand slips. The locker slips open, too, and Jimmy gasps. "Wait, wait, what'd I do?" He looks at his hand and then presses the piece of paper with his locker combination flat against the door, looking back and forth between the numbers and the lock.

"I think we might have to come back to this after homeroom."

Sighing, Jimmy sticks his locker combo in his pocket and stuffs his lunch into his locker. Stephen makes a mental note to come back by this hallway before lunch so he can get it out and keep Jimmy from starving. Then they stare at their class schedules and head down the hallway towards the other end of the school -- Jimmy to the room next to band, Stephen to the closest exit to the trailer his homeroom is in. It's going to freeze in the winter.

Halfway there Jimmy bumps their shoulders together. "You do realize that your mom has had eleven kids, though," he says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Stephen sticks his fingers in his ears and starts singing the theme song to Gilligan's Island.

"Which means she has at _least_ eleven times more experience than you--"

"THE MATE WAS A MIGHTY SAILING MAN, THE SKIPPER BRAVE AND SURE!"

"But probably more, because nobody gets pregnant the first time they try _eleven times_ in a row…"

"THE WEATHER STARTED GETTING ROUGH! THE TINY SHIP WAS TOSSED!"

Jimmy laughs and covers his eyes with his hand until he stops. Stephen cautiously lowers his hands from his ears. They stop outside the door to Jimmy's classroom and fidget for a minute, watching E and F-surnamed students make their way into the room.

Then Jimmy clears his throat. "Did you tell her?" he asks, sticking both his hands in his pockets. He glances over at his classroom and then back at Stephen. "About, you know…?"

"No." Stephen presses his lips together.

A few people pass by them. A couple of people elbow their way between the gap Jimmy and Stephen have left between them, and Stephen draws back to keep from getting a backpack straight in the glasses. By the time it's clear again, the teachers are standing in the hallway and looking at people still loitering, as if to ask, 'Do you really want a tardy your first day?'

Adjusting his backpack back to its original position, Stephen shuffles his feet. "I guess I better go. Um. See you in chemistry?"

"Yeah, right." Jimmy scans Stephen's face and takes a step back. "Is Jon driving us home?"

Stephen nods, and Jimmy smiles a little before waving and fleeing into the safety of homeroom. Stephen gets a look from his teacher and ducks his head, scurrying out the door. It looks like there's not even a covered path out to his trailer, which means he needs to start packing an umbrella in his bag this year.

The thing is … he knows. He knows what he is. So does Jimmy. They figured it out together, first swiping Jon's psychology magazines when he was doing homework while they hung out in his room, and then going on the Internet when those didn't help. Jon even went on a few websites with Stephen. And he and Jimmy have told just about everybody that's important to them both.

(Granted, Jimmy has to keep telling the Fallons, because they keep 'forgetting.' He does it every few months now. He figures eventually it's got to stick.)

But Stephen can't tell his mom. She'll think he's afraid, or second-guessing himself. And he isn't. Stephen is absolutely sure of who he is.

And he manages to get to homeroom as the bell rings, so he's not someone taking a tardy home on the first day of class. Though he is stuck, for the third year in a row, sitting next to the guy who doesn't believe in deodorant.

\---

Amy is the only person in homeroom whose name starts with S. Everyone else is T, like nobody'll notice that she's _Se_ , not _Sz_. She thinks it's probably because her homeroom teacher last year complained about the … everything.

She pops her gum when their teacher sticks his head into the hallway to check if anyone is lagging behind the bell. The kid next to her opens his eyes but doesn't raise his head, and Amy shines a smile at him. She presses her gum into the wrapper and folds her legs up underneath herself, rapping out a rhythm with the end of her pencil while the morning announcements drone on.

The kids in this room aren't as familiar to her. She mostly knows people from the other end of the alphabet.

They stand and sit for the pledge, and Amy pulls her cell phone out and rests it in her lap. She scrolls through her morning messages, looking up at the teacher at the appropriate times. One elbow on her desk and her chin in her hand is enough to make it look like she’s paying actual attention.

 _From: Sweetie Stephen_ (7:31 a.m.)  
I’m stuck next to that guy again.

 _From: Paulbert_ (7:36 a.m.)  
I don’t think the people in this class could even count the stars on the flag, let alone pledge allegiance.

 _From: Paulbert_ (7:36 a.m.)  
Except Cooper.

 _From: Paulbert_ (7:37 a.m.)  
He says hi.

Amy tells Stephen to start carrying some nose plugs in his backpack and says hi back to Anderson while disparaging Paul for having so little faith in his fellow seniors. They are the class that masterminded the net of bouncy balls unleashed onto the gym last year. Although to be fair, that was mostly Amy and Janeane. And Denis. (But Denis was basically a human ladder.)

While other people fill out their clinic cards, Amy writes some names in the cover of her five-subject notebook. _Mr. Paul Sedaris_ and _Mr. Paul Dinello-Sedaris_ and _Dr. and Dr. Sedaris_.

Eraser flecks off in her mouth while she chews on the end of her pencil, and swipes all of the names away. Changing names is a lot of paperwork. And they'll make better careers without changing, anyway. Though she wouldn't say no to an honorary doctorate or two.

The end of the teacher’s speech reminds everybody to have school spirit. Amy thinks she'll try out for the debate club this year. It'll be good practice.

\---

 _"Will you help me with health homework?" Jimmy whispers._

 _Stephen looks up at the teacher's desk. They've got a substitute today, one who doesn't want them to talk, but she's not looking at them. He glances sideways at Jimmy. "Sure." He hasn't been to health yet, but he has his textbook._

 _The worksheet says 'list your ideal qualities in a romantic sexual partner.' Stephen flips it over. The back is blank. He scoots it back over to Jimmy and uses his pencil at the top to underlines 'romantic.'_

 _Jimmy shakes his head so his hair swishes. His cheeks are bright red._

 _Stephen stares at him for a moment._

 _Then he crosses out 'romantic sexual partner' and writes above it 'best friend.'_

 _Some of the flush fades from Jimmy's face, and he smiles just a bit._

\---

"Boring boring boring boring boring!" Stephen says, before Jimmy can ask. Jimmy laughs, hugging his books to his chest, and Stephen bumps their shoulders together. "How was your day?"

"Uh, three borings and two mildly interestings?" Jimmy shrugs. "Art should be fun but all we did today was ice breakers."

The icebreakers had involved talking about yourself and two important people in your life. Jimmy had done his mom and Stephen. Most people had done a parent or a sibling and a boyfriend or girlfriend. Although Jimmy's pretty sure that most people, including his teacher, thought that he was doing a boyfriend when he talked about Stephen.

"I still can't believe we didn't get the same period for art."

"I know, right?" Jimmy sighs. That had been a let down when they'd been comparing schedules. "Maybe next semester."

Jimmy figures Stephen talked about his mom and Jon. And he tells himself if they'd talked about three people, Stephen would've talked about him, too.

But he decides not to ask, anyway.

They skirt through the carpool line and walk right into the parking lot, jumping over a couple of broken bottles ( _That was fast,_ Stephen thinks) to meander down to the gravel lot in the back corner. It's near where the school buses park when they aren't picking people up.

"You'd think your hotshot boyfriend would have snagged a better parking spot," Jimmy says, picking a thorn off his pants when they shuffle through a bush to avoid the couple making out on the stairs.

Stephen rolls his eyes. "The soccer field's just across the road. This _is_ a better parking spot, to Jon."

"Oh." Jimmy squints across the street at the empty fields. "Right."

He hangs back when they get closer to the car and Stephen darts forward to jump on Jon, who drops the newsletters he was reading to hug Stephen back. Jimmy fiddles with the straps on his backpack and shuffles around the other side of the car, pretending not to notice Stephen kissing the tip of Jon's nose.

"How was your day?"

"Boring, boring, boring--"

Jon giggles and Stephen laughs too, letting go of him to walk around and hop into the front passenger's seat. Jimmy sits behind him and holds his backpack in his lap, careful not to sit on any of the papers scattered over Jon's backseat.

"Sorry about that," Jon says, twisting around to move the papers he can reach from the driver's seat. "I have to go to the post office today and I was trying to sort everything into stacks. How was your day? You're taking AP Euro this year, right?"

Jimmy relaxes his grip on his bag. "Yeah. Did you take that?" It's his first Advanced Placement class and he's not entirely sure what to expect, even after reading the syllabus about ten times at lunch. All he knows is the book weighs about a million tons, even more than this year's literature anthology, and he's already got reading to do.

Turning sideways in his seat, head against the window, Stephen pulls his glasses off and starts cleaning them with the bottom of his t-shirt. Jimmy relaxes just a little and pushes his backpack to the floor between his feet, leaning in so he can hear Jon better.

"Yeah," Jon says, smiling a little at him. "It's not so bad if you keep up with the reading. Study the book for the multiple choice tests and the class notes for the essays."

They talk for a few minutes about what Jimmy needs to do to get on his teacher's good side before Jon decides the carpool traffic has died down enough for them to actually get out of the parking lot. Jimmy feels less like he's made the worst decision of his life by taking this class, and more like he can aim for something more than a C.

Stephen only turns towards the front of the car when they're in the street. "Can we go to the post office with you?"

There's a pause as Jon pulls into a turning lane. "You want to wait in line at the post office with me?" he asks.

"I like the post office," Stephen announces. He folds his arms over his chest and presses his lips together like he does when he's trying not to laugh too hard at himself.

Jon meets Jimmy's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Do _you_ want to go to the post office?"

"No," Jimmy says. Smiling, Jon opens his mouth to speak again, but Jimmy leans forward into the gap between the two front seats before he can. "But I wouldn't mind walking next door to the coffee shop."

"We win!" Stephen says, high-fiving him.

Jon shakes his head. "You have warped ideas about winning, Colbert."

\---

They have sixth period together, so when the gym teachers let them go to lounge on the bleachers -- since nobody has the right clothes today -- Janeane climbs over a pile of sophomores to stretch out on the top row with Denis.

"I'm beginning to think putting gym off till senior year was a bad idea, Garofalo," Denis mutters, lying down on the bench. It's the only way for his gangly legs to get any room up here. "Do you have any idea what the boys' locker room smells like?"

"I don't particularly want to." Janeane pulls her math book out of her backpack and starts scribbling down the answers to tonight's homework.

Denis lifts his head to stare at her for a minute and then thumps back against the bench. "Let's just say Kiwi's gotten me into club bathrooms that smelled better."

Janeane sets her pencil between her teeth and fumbles around in her backpack for her calculator. She'd probably be more horrified if she'd actually ever used a bathroom at one of the clubs Kiwi had a habit of bringing them to. Usually the line was enough to make her just hold it until she got home.

"Did you hear that Erica Hill transferred to Abilene?"

She spits her pencil out and pulls her hair behind her ear. "No," she says, frowning. Erica wasn't in any of her classes, but that didn't mean anything. She'd just figured Erica had doubled up on honors classes.

Denis squints at her. She guesses the overhead lights are hurting his eyes. "You know what that means?"

"Quiz Bowl team is going to lose to Abilene for the fifth year running?"

"You're LGBTQute president."

It takes a moment for that to sink in, and then Janeane carefully tucks her homework into her book and folds it shut. "No I'm not," she says, turning her calculator off. "I'm _treasurer._ Treasurers don't get promoted to president."

Denis crosses his legs and folds his hands over his chest. He doesn't say anything, and Janeane holds up one hand, sticking out a finger for each club officer she can remember. Erica Hill, president. Brian Williams, vice president. Janeane Garofalo, treasurer. Anderson Cooper, historian.

"Brian should be--"

"Graduated, remember?"

"Who the hell graduates high school _early?_ " Janeane snaps, shoving her book and calculator into her backpack. She puts her elbows on her knees and sets her chin in her hands, kicking the bench Denis is laying on when he starts snickering at her. "Treasurer is a nice low-key thing to plaster on college apps. We'll just hold another election."

Smirking, Denis says, sweetly, "Everybody always votes in current officers first. And every new person who wants to run is going to want your nice low-key position."

Janeane kicks his bench again and looks away from the gym teacher peering up at them. "That was not how I wanted to spend my afternoons this year," she mutters. Denis doesn't say anything.

This year was supposed to be basically the same as all the other years, only with scholarship and college applications and then a relaxed second semester. Janeane doesn't want to deal with organizing meetings, finding a classroom to gather in, or getting shouted at over the phone or in the principal's office when the inevitable dust-up over their presence on campus offends some delicate flower of a parent.

"I'll help out, if you want," Denis says, softly.

Janeane rubs at her eyes. Well. It would be better if she had somebody around she could actually count on to help. "Vice President Leary it is."

A confused look flits over Denis's face. "Wait, that's not--"

"Too late. You've been drafted."

"There has to be an _election._ "

The bell rings, and they both stand up, waiting for the bleachers to empty a little before stepping into the aisle. Janeane tosses an arm around Denis's shoulders and gives him a tight squeeze. He makes a little noise of protest but doesn't shove her off. "With my endorsement, you're sure to get all the votes you need."

He shakes his head and Janeane laughs.

\---

At the post office, Stephen and Jimmy leave to go over to the coffee shop with a five from Jon to get something from him, and wander back in with their drinks a few minutes later. Jon has taken over a counter in the corner and is sorting carefully.

"Need any help?" Stephen asks, leaning up against his side for a moment. Jon half-smiles and shakes his head, taking a sip of his coffee before going back to the paperwork. Stephen reads the first lines of a few of the cover letters and bites the tip of his tongue. "Hope these all pan out for you," he murmurs.

Jon giggles, relaxing slightly. "If I win every one of these, my first year of college would be totally paid for," he says. Stephen smiles just a little bit and starts sipping on his coffee, even though it's still too hot.

"Where do you _find_ all these contests?" Jimmy asks, setting his elbows on the counter.

"Books and the Internet and the guidance counselor's office." Jon licks his thumb and flips through a stack of paper before shuffling it into an envelope. "If you want them when I'm done you can have them. The books."

Jimmy lights up and Stephen smiles a little, slurping his coffee a bit. "Really?" he glances at Stephen and pulls back slightly. "I mean, um…"

"It's okay. I'm the baby of the family. If there's one thing I've already set some spending money aside for, it's scholarship books," Stephen says, shaking his head. Jon rubs a hand over his arm and Stephen leans into his touch. "I think I'll be safe after the first two hundred applications, huh?"

He keeps steadily sipping his coffee and wishing that he'd bought a bigger cup for the next few minutes, while Jon dutifully copies down addresses and applies return address labels and presses down the corners of stamps. Jimmy asks if there are any school-specific scholarships, and Jon says that you have to wait sometimes until you've actually applied to the school, and there are a lot for out-of-state students.

Stephen excuses himself to go find a trash can even though his coffee isn't totally empty yet. He stands on the sidewalk, feet balancing on the edge of the curb, and gulps down the last dregs.

Being the baby of the family means there are a lot of scholarship applications in his future, too. More than Jon and Jimmy will send off combined, probably. But he doesn't know how many college applications he'll even try for. A safety school, he's not stupid. But…

Everyone in the family keeps asking if he has any ideas yet. And he shrugs, because he's still got till next year to believably not be looking too hard.

A few minutes later Jimmy comes out. Stephen can tell without turning around, because he can hear him slurping up the last of his icy coffee thing. He teeters on the edge of the sidewalk, pushing his weight forward and then dropping back on his heels when his toes threaten to touch the street.

Jimmy slurps his drink one last time and tosses it into a trash can, shuffling forward until he can touch his shoulder to Stephen's. "There's still a year, you know."

The inside of Stephen's throat is sticky. "I know."

Jimmy links their fingers together and Stephen squeezes his hand in return.

"And, hey, it's not like you're leaving too," Stephen says, resting his head on Jimmy's shoulder for a minute. But it's kind of an uncomfortable position, so he stands back up. "No graduating early, right?" he asks. His voice is mostly even.

"Oh, well, if you need me…" Jimmy sighs.

Stephen laughs so hard he has to sit down.


	3. It's Time to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.

_Stevie cannot walk very fast because he has short legs, but he huff puff puffs after Amy and Paul as they ride their tricycles around the cul-de-sac._

 _Amy rides in slow wide circles and Paul tries to make sharp turns but he usually falls off on the concrete. Then he grips his knee and holds it because it hurts. But Stevie trots over to him and kisses the scrape and then it is all better._

 _Amy and Stevie and Paul are best best best friends._

\---

"You can never have too many best friends," Stephen says, bouncing onto the bed behind Paul, who's sitting upside down with his legs up on the wall. Paul grunts and pokes at the screen of his video game, and Stephen watches for a minute before mimicking his position, pressing his legs up flat against the wall.

Amy has a bunch of pins stuck in her mouth and is bent over a half-finished skirt besides, so Stephen doesn't understand the mess of syllables she spits out. But Paul has a PhD in Amy-whispering, so he laughs.

Stephen nudges him. "What'd she say?"

"She said she got us buy one get one free," Paul says, ruffling Stephen's hair without tipping himself over. Stephen giggles, ducking his head and folding his arms over his face.

Winking, Amy hums against her pins and goes back to stitching the poodle onto the bottom of her skirt. When she's done she's going to move onto Paul's. They're going trick-or-treating in matching sock hop outfits this year. Halloween is still a few weeks off, but Amy wants to do a few test runs of the costumes beforehand and needs to finish them early.

There are no school papers or posters in Amy's room, unless you count the Harry Potter house crests she bought off the Internet a couple of years ago. Stephen knows she's applying because he knows Paul's applying, but he doesn't know where and he doesn't plan on asking until they tell him. And they're not telling.

"Did you hear that somebody called the school and cussed out the principal?" Paul asks, a few minutes after Stephen's legs fall asleep against the wall. Even Amy looks up from her work and raises an eyebrow at them.

He pushes his glasses back into place and turns his head sideways. "Like, a crank call?"

Paul shakes his head. "Some parent. 'Cause of Janeane and Denis."

It's probably not charitable, but Stephen can kind of understand why someone would call the school and complain about Denis. Denis is … stubborn. And opinionated. But Janeane? She thinks the same way Denis does, but usually, when she's insulting you, you don't realize it until later, and even then you're not sure.

"What'd she do?" Stephen asks. "Pull Denis off of somebody?"

Paul pulls some curls away from his forehead. "They switched clothes for the yearbook photos."

"What?" Stephen does some mental arithmetic and can't help but get stuck picturing Denis in capri pants that aren't supposed to be capris. "Denis is like a foot taller than her."

Bending over her sewing basket, Amy spits out her pins. "The seniors have to wear those stupid fake clothes, remember? The girls have to wear a top that looks like a black dress and the boys have to wear the top half of a fake tuxedo. They just sit over your shoulders."

"Denis wore a dress?"

"The shoulder parts of a dress, I guess," Amy says, giving Paul a calculating look. She starts sticking her pins into the fake cloth pumpkin she has to keep everything organized. "How'd you find this out?"

Paul lifts a hand and wiggles his fingers. "Dr. E came to yearbook class and pulled Carlson out to tell him it wasn't appropriate for him to go gossiping to his parents," he says, and Amy cackles, clapping her hands. Stephen hides a smile behind his hand.

"Do they have to retake their pictures?" Stephen asks.

Twisting so his legs fall sideways on the bed and he can sit up, Paul shrugs. Stephen feels a bit dizzy watching him lean back to put his shoulders against the wall. "Dunno. But can you see anybody making Janeane do that over again?"

Stephen grins. "Nope."

Half an hour later he and Paul are bent over Amy's computer, navigating Facbeook to find Halloween photos from last year. They're trying to remember where the houses with the good candy are, so they can pick a neighborhood for trick-or-treating. It's not worth all seven of them (Stephen, Jimmy, Jon, Amy, Paul, Denis, and Janeane) tromping all dressed up and lugging pillowcases if they're not even going to get good stuff to trade.

It's an annual tradition. Stephen knows that they're all kind of too old for it now, but it's the last year that they'll be able to do it together. So when he asked, everybody said yes. Even Denis, and Stephen had kind of been expecting for Denis to laugh in his face. Although it maybe helped that he'd asked Denis at Mass.

He doesn't have a costume yet. "Do you think I should do drag this year?" he asks. They're already buying makeup for Paul, if he tags along on that trip he could get some too.

"I really think you should wait till you're of legal age to actually try that stripper getup, Stephen dear," Amy drawls.

Blushing, he ducks his head. "No! I wouldn't wear that, you know, to walk around in."

"The heels would probably kill you anyway," Paul says, winking. Stephen takes his glasses off to clean them on his shirt, and Paul taps his finger against his chin. "Unless you want to go with Princess Leia you probably won't have any way to coordinate a drag costume with Jon's."

Stephen puts his glasses back on and huffs. "How do you know Jon's going to be Han Solo?"

"Uh, because he's been Han Solo for five years running?"

Amy snickers, and Stephen blushes again. "No, I can't do that. Jimmy already wants to be Princess Leia. If I wanted to coordinate I'd have to wear the slave outfit and I'm sure that would make my legs look terrible," he says, running a hand through his hair.

"You could be a 50s girl with us," Amy suggests. She holds up the felt poodle she's just traced.

Leaning over the side of the bed, Paul finds Amy's fabric scissors and hands them over to her. "You could be the poodle," he says, grinning.

Stephen pulls a pillow up to his face and giggles. "I will not be collared, Dinello."

"Just reuse your Legolas costume from this summer."

"That's boring," Stephen says, making a face. The summer had been the first time he'd LARPed -- live action role played. He still had the Nerf bow and arrow set it had taken forever for them to track down. And, more importantly, the wig.

Paul winks. "Not if you figure out how to say trick-or-treat in elvish."

"Oh." Stephen tilts his head to one side. "Well in that case."

After a while, Amy asks, "Do you know what Mrs. Leary said about it?" She's stitching the poodle onto Paul's skirt.

It takes a minute for Stephen to remember the photographs they were talking about earlier, and then he looks up at Paul, biting his lip. All he knows about the Learys is that they're Catholic, sit a few rows to the side from his family at church, and somehow Denis's older brother is allowed to go by Kiwi. He doesn't remember what Denis's father is like.

Paul scratches his head. "I think she did Denis's makeup."

\---

 _Sometimes Denis gets very very quiet and does not talk for days. Jon doesn't find it weird because he's used to it, and he can do Denis's talking for him. He hardly even notices anymore until the new girl, Janeane, who isn't really new since she's been here for four months, asks him about it._

 _"I dunno," Jon says, hunching his shoulders and feeling like he should know. Janeane purses her lips._

 _On the way to recess they both take one of Denis's hands and walk around the track with him. They make two loops and in the middle of the third one Denis starts to sniffle, so they sit down on one of the old rotting jungle gyms._

 _They're late coming back into class, but Jon thinks it's okay. Denis would've been embarrassed if anyone could've told he'd been crying._

 _And he says he feels better now, which is what counts._

\---

Jon just grunts when Janeane comes and sits down on his back. She pats his cheek and he turns his head sideways, so his face isn't pressed into the sheets anymore. Which lets him breathe, although he is stuck staring at the wall until he can twist around and turn his head the other way. Not that Denis staring blankly at the Princeton Review website is that much more interesting than the wall.

"We've already filled out a lot of the Common App," Janeane says, brightly, taking a swig of Gatorade. Jon thinks she sounds a bit manic. "We could just pick schools based on whether they use it or not."

"I'm pretty sure my mom would cry if I did that," Denis says, vaguely. He wiggles the mouse when the computer brings up the screensaver and keeps staring at whatever he's staring at.

Janeane clears her throat and slips off of Jon to nestle back against the stack of pillows at the top of her bed. It's been a really long time since Jon's slept over, and he's always been too embarrassed to ask what she does with six pillows while she's sleeping. He does laugh softly when she stretches out her legs and rests her feet on his back, though. He would ask for some of her Gatorade if he had the energy to sit up.

"Yeah," he says, yawning. "But I think she's going to end up crying as long as you get in somewhere."

"Oh, thanks." Denis rolls his eyes. "Good to know I've set expectations of me high."

"You know what I mean. She loves her little braniac," Jon says.

Denis blushes a little. "Yeah. I know."

He picks at some lint gathering on Janeane's sheets and doesn't say anything for a moment, waiting to see if Janeane or Denis is going to mention it. But they don't, so Jon makes a heroic effort and props himself up with his elbows. Janeane protests, because that knocks her feet off of his back, but he just flips her the bird and she finds one of her pillows to set under her feet.

"So, uh… Stephen told me that you two switched clothes for the yearbook," he murmurs, tossing a piece of lint to the floor. He glances up -- Denis has turned pink again, and Janeane is staring at her nails. "Did you… I mean…"

Denis folds a leg underneath himself, balancing awkwardly in his chair. "It wasn't a big deal. The photographer didn't even say anything," he says. He's plucking at the loose threads of his sock like Jon was playing with the lint.

Tilting her head to one side, Janeane shrugs. "We just took the things he handed us and then swapped. I don't even think he was paying attention." She rolls her eyes. "We shouldn't have to wear whatever they tell us to wear, anyway, just so they can look better."

"The dress top was kinda ugly," Denis concedes. He smoothes out a bump in his sock. "It itched, too."

"Why'd you do it?" Jon asks.

Neither of them say anything, so Jon reaches out and whacks Denis's knee with the back of his hand. It takes some stretching, and he nearly falls off the mattress, but it does make Denis smile.

Jon shakes his head. "I'm not gonna laugh."

Denis shuts the laptop and then opens it again, running his finger along the edge of the keyboard. He wipes the dust off on his shirt. Janeane clears her throat, and Jon glances over at her in time to flinch before she pushes her pillow up against his side. "We figured it'd be easier for Denis to get a dress top if we swapped than if he asked for it."

"Oh." Jon looks over at Denis again. Denis is staring at the laptop. "So, uh… You missed wearing dresses?" he asks.

He can remember Denis wearing Janeane's dresses, when they were little enough that Janeane still owned dresses and Denis would actually fit in them. But they were usually princesses and dragons and wizards when they played dress-up. He doesn't remember Denis looking at dresses since then.

"I… yeah," Denis murmurs. He swallows so hard that Jon can hear it.

"Bet you looked nice."

Denis blushes, and the corner of his mouth twitches. "Thanks."

"What'd your mom think?" Jon asks, trying to look at Denis's face without being too obvious about it. He wishes he'd been there. But their photo appointments had been random and his had been on another day.

"She said I had to take a picture in a nice shirt to send out to family," Denis murmurs. He starts to shut the laptop again and Janeane makes a little noise that makes him let go of it. Then he lifts a hand and rubs the back of his neck. "But that we could put that one on the mantle."

"That's nice, man."

"Yeah," Denis says, half-smiling. He stares into space for a second before shaking himself. "So, uh, what cities are you thinking about? For school?"

Jon rubs at his eyes. He really should've slept more last night. But he couldn't, and Stephen actually sleeps like a normal person, and he feels weird bothering Jimmy too much when Jimmy is signed on to IM at three in the morning because he's pretty sure Jimmy stays up that late only when he's doing homework. Denis only has the desktop at his house, so he's never on past midnight or twelve thirty, and Janeane refuses to stay up past one.

"Dunno," he says, yawning. "You?"

Denis shrugs. "Boston."

"Baws-ton," Jon and Janeane say in unison.

Denis glares at them. "And Chicago."

"Do you have family in Chicago?" Janeane asks, twisting the cap back onto her drink.

"No." Denis blinks and shakes the mouse again to make the screensaver go away. Jon wonders what he could possibly be staring at, but the screen just looks gray from this angle.

Janeane throws her Gatorade into the trash can next to her desk. "I like Chicago," she says. Jon isn't sure, but he thinks that Denis's face turns a little pink. It could just be the red shirt he's wearing, though.

Shutting the lid on the computer, Denis turns the rolling chair to face them and clears his throat. "Have you asked Stephen and Jimmy where they'd like to go yet?"

"No." Jon traces one of the plaid squares on Janeane's sheets.

Denis's eyebrows jump up.

"I'll ask."

"You'd better ask soon," Janeane says, nudging him with her knee. He lets her push him and crosses his arms to put his head down again. "Have you talked with him about school at _all?_ "

Jon shuts his eyes instead of answering, but he's sure that Janeane and Denis shoot each other a sideways look.

\---

 _With all the books in her bag, Janeane feels like she'll be lucky to make it out to the buses. And she nearly falls over when she rounds the corner from her locker and find Stephen and Jimmy huddling there. They jump and she jumps and then they both drop to the ground to help her pick up all the spilled books._

 _"Uh. Hey," Stephen says, hitting her in the shin with a chemistry textbook when he tries to hand it to her. She winces and he goes pale._

 _"We wanted to ask you something," Jimmy says, taking the book out of Stephen's grip and standing up with a pile of them in his hands. Janeane slings her bag off her shoulder and holds it open so he can put them back in._

 _"'Cause you're in the GSA," Stephen says, wringing his hands._

 _Janeane puts her bag down at her feet, getting the feeling she might not make it to the bus in time. "Yeah?" she asks, resting a hand on her hip. Stephen stares at it and she drops it back to her side._

 _"Is it just for gay and straight people?" Jimmy asks, staring at her._

 _She remembers being at his house once and watching his mom mark his height on the kitchen wall. "Nope," she says, shaking her head. "We really gotta rename it sometime." She picks up her bag and starts walking towards the buses again. When they follow her, she looks over her shoulder at them._

 _"W-what about…" Stephen falters, and looks at Jimmy, who puts an arm around his shoulders. Stephen takes a deep breath. "What about asexual people?"_

 _Janeane stops and turns around. Maybe she'll just call her mom and ask for a ride home._

\---

"Are you staying after school today?" Stephen asks.

Jimmy is digging through the back of his locker, trying to figure out if his candy bar fell out of his lunch bag, because it definitely isn't there now. Stephen has to tap him on the back and ask again before Jimmy realizes that he's there.

He leans back from the locker and clears his throat. "Yeah. Aren't you?"

"I was thinking about skipping but only if you did," Stephen admits. He has that sheepish look on his face that he always gets whenever he gets caught being less than perfect but not actually bad.

Jimmy hooks an arm around his shoulders and hugs him close, and Stephen surprises him -- a lot -- by putting both his arms around Jimmy and hugging him back. For a second Jimmy is so startled he doesn't know what to do, except think about all the people who don't hug him, but then the second is over and Stephen's let go of him and Jimmy didn't even do anything.

But he makes himself smile, anyway, because Stephen is his friend and he _does_ like being hugged. Off the top of his head, he just wishes that it happened often enough that it wasn't a complete shock when it did happen.

"You look a little down," Stephen says.

He puts an arm across Jimmy's shoulders, which is more normal for them. Jimmy shuts his locker door, and Stephen walks him down the hall towards their next classes, which are across the hall from each other. It only takes a couple of minutes to get there, so they've still got about five minutes to hang out in the hallway. It's far enough into the school year that none of the teachers have the energy to talk about loitering and time that could better be spent studying.

"I'm probably just coming down with something," Jimmy says, leaning against the wall. He hugs his extra books to his chest.

Stephen purses his lips. "You wanna go straight home?" he asks. When Jimmy raises both his eyebrows, Stephen flushes pink. He laughs, clearing his throat and choking on it some. "I mean -- for you, not me."

A group of people bump past them and Jimmy rearranges his books in his grip to keep from dropping them. "The meeting'll only last an hour. I can tough it out," he says.

The tilt of Stephen's head is doubtful.

"Besides, maybe it'll be interesting," he says. He smiles, perking up. "I saw Denis and he said it was going to be about college and stuff."

That makes Stephen roll his eyes and slump against the wall for a moment. Jimmy almost laughs, because he looks so pathetic, but Stephen hasn't really _said_ anything about Jon going to college, so Jimmy's not going to go there if Stephen isn't ready to laugh about it.

"Jon can look after me if you're that worried and want to go home," Jimmy suggests. Jon and him hang out sometimes. Jimmy likes it, because Jon is pretty cool. Even though Jimmy's parents seem to think there's something weird about him hanging out with Jon when Stephen isn't around.

Stephen shakes his head. "No, I'll stay with you," he says. He sucks his lower lip between his teeth and hugs Jimmy again.

This time Jimmy has the presence of mind to hug him back, and rest his head on Stephen's shoulder for a moment. Stephen is hugging him so tight he doesn't even want to look up at the clock to see how much time has run out on them.

"I'll stay with you too," Jimmy says, and Stephen tightens his grip. Jimmy keeps his head on Stephen's shoulder, and Stephen doesn't seem inclined to move back to look at him, either. He wishes he were psychic, even though the other day he told Stephen his superpower would be flying. "Are you doing okay?" he asks, quietly.

That makes Stephen let go of him, and Jimmy regrets asking it in a flash that makes him feel guilty the second it's over.

"I don't wanna talk about it." Stephen takes Jimmy's hand as he speaks, which is the most confusing thing he's done all day, until he looks up at Jimmy and his eyes are watering a little. He sniffs. "But that's our whole problem, isn't it?"

Oh. Jimmy leans in and touches his forehead to Stephen's. "I'll… be around. If you want to talk to me after you talk to him."

"But you need to be there, too," Stephen says, his voice pitching up slightly. His grip on Jimmy tightens until it hurts.

"Okay, okay," Jimmy whispers, hugging Stephen again. "I promise I'll talk about school too. I promise I won't avoid it." Stephen sniffles into his neck, wetly, and doesn't make a move as the bell rings. Jimmy doesn't know if this should make him feel better or worse.

\---

Janeane is contemplating the chunks of ice in her strawberry milk when Jimmy and Stephen sit down across from her. She pokes at some pink ice with her straw and looks up over the rims of her glasses at them. Stephen looks the same color as the milk, but Jimmy looks normal. Of course, Jimmy's eating a bag lunch and Stephen has … well, Janeane doesn't know what he has, but it's on one of the school's blue lunch trays.

"Did your table get overtaken?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

The two of them normally sit in the courtyard, during the right weather, and it's not all that cold yet. Of course, the longer you keep sitting in the courtyard, the harder it is not to get stuck sitting on the cafeteria floor during the winter. And Janeane normally sits with Sam and Jason, but they're both out with mono this week.

Jimmy shakes his head. "We kinda wanted to ask your advice about something," he says, unrolling the top of his lunch bag.

Cautiously sipping her milk, Janeane keeps staring.

"And, uh, share the pleasure of your good company," Stephen adds, smiling shyly at her. It catches her off-guard enough that she actually laughs, and Stephen beams, shooting a little proud look at Jimmy.

Janeane shakes her head and rests an elbow on the table, poking her fork at the spaghetti and meatballs slumped on her tray. "I'm incredibly bored, so ask away," she says, yawning. Eating would probably help her be less tired.

"You should use your imagination to entertain yourself," Stephen says. Janeane snickers and he blushes a little, ducking his head. He pokes at his mystery food and clears his throat. "Sorry you got stuck in lunch without Jon and Denis, your last year."

"Bound to happen some year." Janeane shrugs.

But she never knew how boring twenty-five minutes of her day could be after having lunch with the two of them for three years running. No offense to Sam and Jason, but it's not the same. Especially when one or the other of them is always off doing makeup work in the library or working with a club.

Jimmy glances over at Stephen and bites into a sandwich. When he can talk again, he asks, "So … have you and Denis talked about, you know, college?" and Janeane thinks that's a weird way to ask her advice about, obviously, Jon.

"We've been doing applications together," she says, though. She breaks some ice up in her milk. "Talking about what cities we want to be in, mostly. He doesn't seem sure. I don't think he really knows what he wants to do yet."

The two of them share another look and Janeane wonders if they managed to develop that telepathy they'd talked about in middle school. "I think it'd be good to be in the same city as somebody you know," Stephen murmurs. "Even if you're not at the same school."

"Better than being alone," Janeane says. She tilts her head to one side and studies their faces for a moment. They both look mildly ill, though Jimmy's tearing into his sandwich anyway. "You know Jon's not finished with his applications, right? I know it's early for you two but you must have an idea of what kind of location you'd like to be in."

Stephen flushes strawberry-milk again and looks down at his tray. "Have you and Denis talked about what … what you'll do if you're not at the same school?" he asks. He picks up whatever's on his plate and dunks it in ketchup before nibbling at it.

Getting asked about it makes Janeane nervous in a way that not talking about it hasn't. She looks between the two of them again, but she can't read anything on their faces but worry. "No," she says, shifting her weight. "I mean. We're friends. We'll stay in touch."

At least, she had assumed they would. Before Jimmy and Stephen went and asked.

They both stare at her, and then Jimmy smiles a little. "I bet you'll end up going to the same school," he says, confidently, like it's supposed to reassure her. He even reaches over and pats the back of her hand.

Janeane stares at her milk. She's not hungry anymore.


	4. It's Time to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.

_Janeane tells the teacher watching over detention that her Mary Shelley book is for English, and apparently the guy never talks to the English department because he believes her._

 _She tries not to look out the window at the parking lot every five seconds, not that her friends make it easy. When a car alarm goes off thirty minutes into the session she's amazed Jon isn't running towards the woods with Denis, Stephen, Jimmy, Amy and Paul at his heels and his soccer ball out of sight._

 _When she turns in her 'Why I was here' worksheet, she doesn't write 'because I told the health teacher to fuck off for telling me I'm diseased' only because her mom said one detention was okay, circumstances considering, but two would get her grounded._

 _Instead she writes 'because asking about sexual orientation isn't acceptable for state-designed sex ed classes' and hopes the teacher pays as little attention to these worksheets as he does everybody stuck in this classroom for an hour on a Saturday._

 _Everybody's still in the parking lot when she comes down the stairs. And Jon and Denis are still the only ones who know why she's here, because they're in her health class. And none of the others ask._

 _She sits in the backseat of the Dinello minivan, wedged between Denis and Jon, and laughs while Amy berates the culinary merits of every fast food place Jimmy and Stephen suggest going to._

\---

At the first meeting of LGBTQute after the yearbook photo incident, Janeane sits on top of a desk and puts her feet in a chair. Denis sits next to her, although he just faces backwards in his chair and rests his arms and chin along the top of it. He stares at the people who come through the classroom and tries to figure out from their faces who knows what.

The thumbs-up Stephen and Paul give him makes part of that really obvious. Obviously Stephen knew. Since Jon found out from Stephen, Denis figured Paul knew, too. He's not surprised that Amy knows, either, but he is a little startled when she runs over and hugs him tight.

"Uh…" Denis looks at Janeane, who just snickers. He hesitantly hugs Amy back.

She leans back and flashes a grin at him. "If you wanna wear a dress to prom, we will totally make that happen," she says.

Denis turns ten shades of red. "Oh. Uh. T-Thanks." Actually he's pretty sure, at this point, that the principal would back him up on that. Dr. E yelling at Carlson had been hard to ignore, even though he wasn't even _in_ the yearbook class. He'd just kind of been hoping everyone else had ignored it too.

Amy leans in and kisses his cheek, which makes him choke. "Don't let the haters get you down, hon," she murmurs, squeezing him.

He opens and shuts his mouth without saying anything, then relaxes. "Thanks, Amy."

"No problem," she says, grinning at him again before trotting off to find a seat.

Denis puts his hands in his lap and tries not to look embarrassed as the rest of the club members trickle into the room. He's not. He's really not. Not about wearing the dress. Just about … anybody looking at him funny.

"Okay," Janeane says, after everyone has shown up. Nobody here looks at Denis funny.

Janeane doesn't take attendance like Erica used to, but Anderson still does (though Denis can't figure out how attendance records are going to make it into the club scrapbook). Denis takes stock of faces that show up regularly, but a lot of them he still doesn't know, especially the freshmen.

"Today we're talking about college," Janeane says, and rolls her eyes when a few groans go up, mostly from seniors who immediately put their heads down on their desks. "The counselors aren't going to give you this info in those homeroom seminars, which _some of us_ should already know, so shut up and let me spiel. I'll be saving you twenty-five dollars on this book."

She hauls her backpack up from the floor and roots around in it until she finds the book Denis helped her pick out at the store a couple of weeks ago. It's got a bright green cover and is actually supposed to cover the entire LGBT acronym, but Denis flipped through it and didn't find anything specific for bi people, so. But they picked it over the other one because it actually listed some schools with trans-friendly dorms.

There are a bunch of dog-eared and highlighted pages, and Denis almost gets hit in the face with some sticky tabs when Janeane plops the book in her lap.

Then Janeane launches into a speech that sounds remarkably like the one Mrs. Garofalo gave them once when she came in with cookies and caught Denis making a paper airplane out of a print-out on Boston U. Denis rests his head on Janeane's leg while she's talking, and she nudges him with her knee until he sits back up.

There's only one school on Janeane's list that's in a city that Denis hasn't applied to, and that's some college in upstate New York where Denis knows he couldn't get accepted. He went to the website and everything, but they only take women at the school. Apparently Janeane's grandmother wanted her to apply to at least one all-women place.

Halfway through the Q&A, which makes Janeane go to the index a lot, Jon sidles over and sits down next to Denis. "You look like you're about to fall asleep," he whispers.

"I am," Denis says, yawning. Janeane accidentally bumps him on the head with the book, and Jon giggles a little, hiding it behind his fist. "Oh, shut up," Denis mutters. "You have to talk next."

Jon blanches and folds a leg underneath himself. "Yeah, I know," he murmurs, ducking when Janeane reaches out to slap him in the back of the head. He bats his eyelashes at her and slides down in his chair while she goes on answering some more questions, mostly from girls. Denis bumps their knees together and Jon bumps back.

He's feeling all right. Maybe he'll even … maybe he'll even talk to Janeane later. If he doesn't chicken out again.

Some kid whose hair changes color between every meeting (it's black this time) raises her arm. "So this is a list of safe schools?" she asks, sounding suspicious.

Janeane stops with a pencil resting between her teeth and tugs it out to set behind her ear. "Safer," she says, staring at the kid. She takes her glasses off and runs her hand through her hair. "There's jackasses everywhere."

The room is quiet for a minute and Denis puts his head back on Janeane's leg. This time she doesn't nudge him off.

\---

After the meeting is over, Jon helps Janeane clean up the scraps of paper and leftover snack wrappers strewn around the classroom. He's pretty sure that most of this stuff came from the classes that'd been in there all day, not them, but if they don't leave the place spic-and-span they're going to get the blame for it.

He's picking paper out of the carpet because that little vacuum doesn't work when Denis drops down next to him, holding the trash can. "I think for our next fundraiser we should buy a Roomba for the school," Denis says, scowling at the paper Jon dumps into the can.

"I think even a Roomba would have problems with this," Jon says, deciding he's gotten enough paper up for the teacher not to notice in the morning. He dusts his hands off on his pants.

Denis looks into the trash can like he's searching for the secrets of the universe, and Jon leans forward until their foreheads bump. "We can get a Roomba if you really want it that bad, buddy," he says, putting a hand down on Denis's shoulder.

"I'm thinking about asking Janeane out." Denis raises his eyes from the trash can, and Jon feels his widen. Denis bites his lip and rubs a hand over the back of his neck, sitting up straight and settling down on his knees. "But, I mean… I dunno…"

Jon chews on his lip. "How long have you been thinking about this?" he asks, glancing over to make sure Janeane can't hear them. She's leaning in the doorway talking to Jimmy and Stephen, though, so she shouldn't be able to catch anything they're saying.

"Like a year," Denis admits, laughing hoarsely.

"Oh, wow," Jon says, startled. Denis cringes and Jon grabs hold of his shoulder, squeezing. He makes a face at himself and shakes his head. _Good going, Jon._ "No, I just mean, I didn't know you were thinking about it."

Denis yanks a staple up from the carpet and tosses it into the trash can. "It's a terrible idea," he says to nobody.

"I didn't say that. Did I say that?" Jon asks, squeezing Denis's shoulder again. He pulls his hand back and runs it through his hair. "I mean, Janeane doesn't really talk to me about dating… But I know she cares about you," he says. He hesitates. "I don't think asking her would … you know … mess things up between you two. If you're worried about that."

"If it doesn't go right it could go really wrong," Denis says, softly.

Jon falters. "Well… so could everything."

Denis stares at him, clear eyes wide. "That's really encouraging, Jonny," he drawls, lapsing into his quasi-Irish accent for a second.

"You always set yourself up for the worst, Denis," Jon says, sighing. Denis glares at him and Jon scratches the back of his head. He can't count the number of times Denis's final decision on something was 'not even going to try.' "Maybe you should just … be optimistic for once. If you've been thinking about it for so long."

"Do they tap you to give pep speeches at the soccer games, Jon?" Denis mutters. He squashes down the paper in the trash can.

Blowing out a breath, Jon twists around so he's on his knees. "You could ask her to talk about it, then," he suggests. Denis turns a little ashen and Jon rolls his eyes. "Because dating means you never have to talk about your feelings," he drawls, ducking when Denis aims a swing at his arm.

"I know, I know, I just…" Denis stops and gets to his feet, smiling a little. "Hey."

Jon isn't surprised to turn around and see Janeane. She flicks a finger against the back of his head and he giggles, getting to his feet and brushing himself off while Denis puts the trash can back where he found it.

"We're clearing out. The janitor wants to lock the building up," Janeane says. She's got her glasses tucked against the front of her shirt and her bag dangling off one arm. Jon tries to picture her and Denis kissing and Janeane raises an eyebrow at him. "You catching something, Jon?"

"No," he says, going pink. Just 'cause he can't picture it doesn't mean Denis and Janeane can't.

He clears his throat and gives her a sideways hug, then waves to Denis, walking backwards on his way out of the classroom. And as soon as he's out of Janeane's sight he shoots Denis an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up, though Denis just stares at him.

When he turns around to go through the doorway face-first, he crashes into Stephen and Jimmy. Jimmy puts up a hand to catch him and Stephen bites his lip.

"Sorry," Jon says, laughing. He moves forward to hug Stephen and Jimmy looks down at his feet, tugging on the straps of his backpack. Jon touches his arm and the three of them walk out of the building together. "What's up, guys?"

Stephen scuffs his sneaker against some gravel. "We need to talk to you. About … about college."

Jon stops at the top of the stairs leading down to the parking lots.

\---

 _Denis's Ma says he is shooting up like a weed, and he has to start wearing Kiwi's old clothes most of the time, but he still fits in a couple of Janeane's Sunday dresses, and Mrs. Garofalo says it's okay if he stretches them a little._

 _Jon has a towel piled on his head like Denis's Ma does when she comes out of the shower, but Jon says it is a wizard's hat. He also says he has to stand on Janeane's toy box to do magic. Janeane is still putting on tinfoil armor so she says she doesn't care._

 _Lifting the skirt at the corners, Denis practices his princess curtsey in front of the mirror. Jon says that wizards are allowed to marry people like priests do at church so once Janeane rescues Denis from Jon's evil clutches he can marry them, if they want._

 _Denis thinks he might just want Janeane to make him some armor like hers, though. To go over the dress. And maybe a crown._

\---

On the way out to the car, Janeane can see that Jon and Stephen and Jimmy are still standing by Jon's car. But Denis parks on actual pavement and not the gravel lot, so she can't make out what the three of them are doing.

She leans against the side of the car and stretches while Denis roots around in his pockets for his keys. "Do you want to stop somewhere to eat on the way home? I'll buy," she says, fiddling with the buttons on the front of her shirt. It's too cold now to take her shirt off after school just to show off her tattoo, more's the pity.

"Um…" Denis drops his keys and sighs, setting his backpack on the roof of the car so he can crouch down and look under it. "I could buy," he says, stretching his arm under the car.

"I told you I'd pay you back for doing all the prep for this meeting with me," Janeane says. And seeing Jimmy and Stephen and Jon together made her remember that afternoon, at lunch. Do she and Denis do enough 'friend' things together? Carpooling isn't the same as hanging out…

She listens to him scrabbling around under the car for another moment before getting down on her own hands and knees and peering over at him. "They went behind the wheel."

Denis ducks his head into the shadows under the car and squints. "Oh. Thanks."

Janeane stares at his feet for a moment after he's stood up, and uses the door handle to haul herself to her own feet. "So… burgers?" she asks, standing back when Denis leans across the seats. He unlocks her door and shoves it open, plopping back into his own seat. "Or fish?" she teases, grinning. It is Friday.

"We could go to that new place," Denis says, running a thumb over the edge of the steering wheel.

Janeane puts her bag between her feet and yanks down her seatbelt. "The movie theater where you get real food?" They see it out the window when she and her dad go to the grocery store. The parking lot always looks packed.

"Oh, uh…" Denis puts the keys in place and fumbles to buckle his own seatbelt, while Janeane resists the urge to lean back and put her feet on the dashboard to warm up in the sun. "You wanna go there?"

"Might be interesting. There's that zombie movie out Jon's been talking about." She glances at her watch. "I'd need to show my face at home, though. And Jon might be busy."

Denis stares at the windshield for so long Janeane nearly leans over to wave a hand in his face. But he turns and smiles at her before she can start to move. "How about… um… I look up the movie times and call you and then we can…" He takes a breath. "Go out? Together?"

She tilts her head to one side at the look on Denis's face, but, yeah, she wouldn't mind seeing a movie with just him, even though they've been hanging out all week to prep for the meeting. Besides, maybe it's … better that way. Doing something just with Denis. Jon has to think about Stephen and Jimmy when he applies to school, but she…

"Sure," she says, stretching her arms above her head. She laughs softly when Denis beams at her. They're best friends. What is she working herself up about? "Just as long as you don't make me sit right next to the screen."

He starts the car and backs out of his parking space. "We can sit wherever you want."


	5. It's Time to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.

_The first time they kiss, really kiss, not Stephen pecking him on the cheek and then running away on the playground, Jon ends up twisting Stephen's shirt in his hands like he's afraid Stephen is going to slip away. It just makes Stephen laugh into Jon's mouth and pull him closer._

 _Nobody ever asks him if he thinks Stephen was serious, when they were kids, and Stephen used to make him play 'wedding.' No one ever asks him if Stephen ever talks about playing like that._

 _He doesn't, by the way. Stephen._

 _Since his mom thought it was so cute, Jon still has a lot of photos from the wedding game. Sometimes he looks at them and wonders whether Stephen remembers the white dress that used to swap between them._

 _But mostly the photo box stays on his shelf. Jon doesn't know if he should ask Stephen about the games, or the dress._

\---

"So, um. What do you … what do you want to ask me about?" Jon asks, untying his laces. He pushes his shoes underneath Jimmy's bed, to keep them out of the way, and awkwardly folds his legs up underneath himself.

Jimmy's sitting on the bed, too, leaning back against his pillows with one clutched to his stomach. He has his feet are angled to the side so they don't bump up against Jon's leg. He looks like he's holding the pillow because his stomach hurts, but Jon doesn't know what to do about it. Normally he would get a bag of ice or a spoonful of baking soda, but he has the feeling the problem isn't whatever Jimmy ate for lunch.

"You keep talking about how … about the applications," Stephen says, folding his arms across his knees. He's sitting on the corner of the bed, his feet hanging off the side of the mattress and resting on the bed frame. "But we never… We haven't talked about what you want in a school or where you might be going or what you might do when you get there," he babbles.

Swallowing, Jon puts his back against the wall. "Oh."

"And we have to," Stephen squeaks, pulling off his glasses and fiddling with the temples. "Everything's going to be different when you're gone."

Jon flushes pink and pulls at the seams of his jeans. Stephen's voice is all twisted and thin and tinny. "It's not all going to be different," he protests, glancing over at Jimmy for support. But Jimmy's just looking at his hands.

"Really? Are we going to call? Text? Are you going to visit on holidays and weekends? W-what if you go somewhere and the time zone is really different? What if all your classes are at night and I'm in bed by the time you get out? What if you like your new college friends better than us?" Stephen stammers, dropping his glasses.

Jon stares and feels bad for thinking, well, everything _is_ going to be different then. Then he does a double-take and leans across the mattress to grab one of Stephen's wrists when he passes by the bed again. "Hey. I wouldn't ever like any of my friends better than you."

"But you'll see them all the time and you'll only see me if you visit or Skype! You won't just bump into me in the hallways or see me when we carpool and…" Stephen stops himself, his breath hitching, and he sits down in a bit of a crumple on the empty corner of the mattress.

Glancing self-consciously over at Jimmy, Jon crawls over to sit right behind Stephen and wrap his arms around Stephen's chest. "Do you remember when you went to camp for eight weeks last summer?" he asks, whispering into Stephen's ear.

Stephen sniffs and wipes at his eyes. He didn't pick up his glasses when he dropped them earlier. "Yeah," he says, wetly.

"We could only text a little bit at night. We couldn't call or see each other or spend more than an hour talking. But we got through that, didn't we?" Jon murmurs. He gives Stephen a tight hug, so Stephen's back presses against his chest.

"It's not the same!" Stephen protests, twisting his fingers up in Jon's sleeves. It stretches the fabric tight over Jon's arms, but he can't get Stephen to relax. "We knew I was coming back, to the same place, and everything would be the same," Stephen mumbles. He's taking deep breaths and shaking a little in Jon's grip.

Jon kisses the back of Stephen's head and glances over at Jimmy, who's still staring at his hands and, Jon guesses, wondering why they didn't go to Stephen's house instead, even though Mrs. Colbert would've been checking in on them there -- especially if she heard Stephen being upset. Actually Jon almost wishes one of the Fallons would check in on them. At least it would give him a minute to think.

"Well… I guess… I mean, I could show you my list of schools. If, um. It's at home, though," Jon finally says, letting go of Stephen to rub a hand over his shoulder.

Stephen sniffs, and wrings his hands together. His voice is all damp and Jon doesn't know what to do besides keep stroking Stephen's shoulder. "We have to talk about schools _together_ , 'cause, if you go to one city and I go to another city and then we have to decide who moves where, then, then, I don't know! But it'd be really hard and if we all pick a city _together_ t-then it'll be easier!"

"Okay," Jon mumbles, feeling a little overwhelmed.

He doesn't even know what cities he's been thinking about. It's not like he plotted them on a map. There's some here, some there, good schools… places that his mom would be proud to hear he was applying to.

Stephen wriggles out of Jon's grip so he can turn around, and Jon leans out of his way. He was expecting Stephen to be smiling, maybe, but he isn't. His face looks so open without his glasses. "So… where _have_ you been thinking about going?"

Jon opens and shuts his mouth. "Uh…" He falters, trying to think. "Boston? And … Chicago?"

"Boston?" Stephen asks, startled. "Do you have family there?"

"No." Jon turns pink. "It just seemed … nice."

"I don't know anything about Boston," Stephen says. He takes a breath and runs a hand through his hair. "But I like Chicago."

Jon smiles, a little. He hasn't actually thought about Chicago that much. He thinks it's cold there. "It's a start?" he asks, softly.

Stephen opens his mouth, hesitates, and glances over at Jimmy, who glances back and forth between them. "It's … a start. Um. Get us that list?" he asks, covering Jon's hand with his own and smiling in that way that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle.

"Okay," Jon says.

He's got to narrow it down from 'anywhere with a name I recognize' first, though. If he can figure out what's better in a school than that.

Stephen closes his hands around Jon's, and Jon squeezes them back reflexively. "That's what you want, right? To stay together? You don't… You think it matters that we're in the same place, right?" Stephen asks, bending down a little to meet Jon's eyes.

Jon feels himself go a bit wobbly -- Stephen's eyes always do that to him. If his hands were free he'd brush Stephen's hair away from his forehead. He looks down at their hands, squeezes them again, and looks back up. He can see Jimmy pretending not to stare at them from the corner of his eye.

"If you want it," Jon murmurs, "that's what I want."

Stephen lets go of his hands to wrap his arms around Jon. "Of course that's what I want!" he says, and Jon thinks he might actually be choking from how hard Stephen is gripping him. "How could you not know that?"

"You… just… never asked," Jon says. His and Jimmy's eyes meet awkwardly, and they both look away at the same time. Jon takes a breath and tries to get his head under control. "And changed the subject whenever I talked about applications," he says, wincing as soon as he hears himself.

Stephen leans back, shaking his head. "I promise I want to stay with you," he whispers, touching his forehead to Jon's. He's got some hair falling down that tickles against Jon's hairline.

"Okay," Jon murmurs. He'd kiss Stephen on the mouth, but Jimmy's there, so he just kisses the tip of Stephen's nose instead.

And then he goes home on his own, hunched over the steering wheel and thinking about the dozens of other ways that conversation could've gone.

\---

 _Stevie is still too little to use the big craft scissors, but Amy's mom helps them out so it's okay. She cuts out all the hearts Amy drew, and the flowers, and the dog. Then she opens up a bag of letter-shaped stickers and a glue stick, and tells them to have fun._

 _Amy lets Stevie draw the speech bubble next to the dog and glue the flowers on at the corners of the paper. Amy is still unsure about the hearts but Stevie thinks they really wrap up the message._

 _She uses the letter stickers to spell out, 'Paul you will take me to prom.'_

 _Prom is a long way away, more than Stevie has even been_ alive _. But Amy says that if she does not keep reminding Paul he will forget._

\---

Paul is biking home from the store when he gets honked at, and he nearly falls off his bike doing a double-take to find Jon waving at him. Something in the back of Paul's head jiggles, but he can't figure out what it is, so he just waves back.

It's not until he's at the mouth of his own neighborhood that he realizes Jon was alone in the car, and he wasn't coming from the direction of Stephen's house. Paul stops his bike for a moment at the Colberts' driveway but the light in Stephen's room isn't on. And Mrs. Colbert's car is in the garage, so there's no way Paul's going to pedal into the backyard or throw pebbles at Stephen's window.

When he gets to the end of the neighborhood, Amy's doing loops around the cul-de-sac in her rollerblades. Backwards. He slides his bike into place beside her and works very hard to keep himself from tipping into her, even though they're going kind of slowly.

"Saw Jon on the way home. Stephen wasn't with him," he says, edging out of the way when Amy spreads her arms out for balance. "But he wasn't coming from this direction."

Amy shrugs, wobbles, and Paul inhales sharply before she catches herself. "He probably dropped him off at Jimmy's." She glances at the bag on Paul's back and grins. "Did they have all the stuff?"

"Everything. Even the plastic pumpkins."

"I told you they'd have the plastic pumpkins. It's almost Halloween."

Paul smiles. "I talked the cashier into taking the coupon for that x-acto knife that expired last week. And got some extra blades in case we need them," he says. Amy grins at him and he ducks his head.

Amy shakes her head and turns around sharply, her curls bobbing. Paul stops next to her mailbox to shrug his bag off, and Amy skates one last loop around the cul-de-sac before coming to a stop next to him. She claps her hands together and leans over to zip apart Paul's bag at the top.

"Ooh. You got fancy cardstock too," she says. She pulls out a pack of patterned paper that took Paul ten minutes to pick out. It's white and gold and silver. "I knew it was a good idea to send you to the store."

"That, and you can't rollerblade on public streets," Paul says.

Amy tweaks his nose and leans in to kiss him. Her lips are sticky and glossy and taste like strawberry.

Paul touches their foreheads together. "Do you think we should really keep it secret this long?" he asks. He runs a hand through Amy's curls. She's sweating a little and he just wants to bury his face in the crook of her neck.

She puts the cardstock back in his bag and zips it closed. "Well, we can tell people about the Halloween party as soon as we're done with the invites. But we should probably wait on the rest." When she sees his face she pats his cheek. "Nobody's going to be mad."

"Okay." Paul twists the handlebars on his bike.

"And when we come back, we can have a party for that, too."

That does make Paul smile. "With cake?"

"Lots of cake," Amy promises, kissing him again. She grabs his hand. "And we'll invite all our friends. C'mon, let's get inside."

Paul grins and lets her pull him towards his front door. He casts one look over his shoulder before he shuts it behind them, though, half-expecting (out of habit) to see Stephen walking down to the cul-de-sac. But nobody's there, and Amy's kissing the back of his arms, so he shuts the door and locks it.

\---

 _"Do you ever think about your wedding?" Stephen asks, sighing._

 _Jimmy looks up from the magazine in his lap. His are about hors d'oeuvres and side salads and dealing with family members who don't want to go vegetarian for just one meal (Jimmy likes to cook). There's food on the cover of his._

 _The cover of Stephen's has a woman in a dress so tight Jimmy doesn't think she'd be able to lean down to cut the wedding cake. He likes the white tux on the bride next to her, though._

 _"No," Jimmy says, looking back down at a recipe for butternut squash soup._

 _Stephen's face falls. "Oh."_

 _"I think about yours, though," Jimmy says, rushing to fill the silence. Stephen's face brightens again. Happy to be understood. Jimmy's chest aches a little. "I'm going to be best man, right?" Right?_

 _"Of course," Stephen says, flipping a page. Jimmy smiles slightly. Stephen holds up the magazine. "What do you think of this bouquet?"_

 _"Needs less ribbon."_

\---

Jimmy shuts the door behind Jon, because the lock is funny ever since it flooded that once and he has to jiggle it just right to get it back into place. Stephen isn't any good at it, but Jimmy bangs his hip against the right spot and the lock clicks into place.

"That went okay, huh?" Stephen asks. When Jimmy turns around, he's cleaning his glasses off on his shirt and half-smiling. "I mean, it could've gone worse, right?" Stephen puts his glasses back on and his eyes suddenly look bigger.

Jimmy tucks his arms around himself. "I guess."

Stephen falters, and what there was of his smile fades. He seems like he's actually looking at Jimmy for the first time in an hour, and Jimmy looks away from him, shuffling towards the kitchen. It's not until he's poured himself a glass of water that Stephen follows.

"He said we'd get to talk about it more," Stephen says.

"I think he'd said he'd talk to _you_ more," Jimmy says, quietly, then stops himself. He guzzles half the glass of water while Stephen stares at him. Then Jimmy has to breathe, and he lowers the glass, absently running a fingertip around the ridge. There's a little hollow ringing noise that usually Stephen would fake-complain about but doesn't.

He shifts his weight back and forth and smoothes the wrinkles out of his shirt. "I… I don't…"

Turning to the fridge, Jimmy gets out the water filter again to refill his glass. His throat itches. "It's not a big deal," he says, slowly, spelling out the words in his head. This is the part where Stephen is supposed to agree with him.

Stephen hesitates, and Jimmy puts the filter back up, waiting.

"We'll find a place together, won't we?" Stephen asks, twisting his shirt up in his hands. Jimmy curls all ten fingers around his glass and stares down into it. "That's what we agreed on. If … if not the school, then the city, and then we can still be around each other…"

"And when you move in with Jon then you can visit me at my single dorm every other weekend," Jimmy says, biting his lip. He scuffs his foot against the floor and bangs his knee into the cabinets in the process. "Damn it," he mutters, taking a step back -- right into Stephen, who curls an arm around his shoulder.

"I don't understand," Stephen says, turning Jimmy around and holding his shoulders still. Jimmy squirms and looks everywhere -- the ceiling, the backsplash, the tiles on the floor, his last piece from art class tacked up on the fridge -- but Stephen. Stephen squeezes his shoulders. "You don't wanna move far away from me, right?" he asks, his voice pitching up slightly. "If we're in a city there'll be buses--"

Jimmy shakes his head, and pulls away from Stephen even though it hurts. But Stephen's isn't touching him because he wants to, it's just to make Jimmy stand still and listen, so Jimmy backpedals all the way to the kitchen table, where he drops into a chair and puts his hands in his lap.

"When you move in with Jon, I'll just be second. You won't think… you won't think, 'oh, I wanna see Jimmy when class is over today.' You'll be thinking about Jon," he says. "I mean, I get it. But … I'm not going to be important anymore."

Usually when he gets maudlin like this he goes and curls in a ball on his bed and plays video games until his breath doesn't hitch in his chest anymore. This is the first time he's ever said any of this out loud, and he expected it to hurt, he expected to cry, but instead the wide-eyed look on Stephen's face just makes the words pour out faster and hotter because how has Stephen not thought about any of this when it's on Jimmy's mind _all the time?_

"The best friend isn't important," Jimmy says, taking big breaths. "Not after -- not after someone _more_ important comes along, like Jon. I mean, it's easy now, 'cause we're in high school and we live near each other and you don't live with Jon, but it's going to be _different_ in college."

Stephen is picking at his nails and shifting his weight. It seems to take a moment to sink in that Jimmy's stopped talking. "You're still going to be important to me," he says, in stops and starts. "You're still going to be a part of my life."

Turning to face the table a little more, Jimmy rests one elbow on the glass top. "But not like I am now," he says. He doesn't understand why Stephen doesn't see this. "What if Jon's top school is in a city I don't want to be in? Would my opinion even matter?"

"Of course it would!"

"Really? Because he didn't talk to me at all back there," Jimmy says, his face turning bright pink. Stephen is a little red around the color, but from the way he's fidgeting it's embarrassment, not anything else. "Jon … Jon doesn't like me, Stephen," he says, his voice getting quieter until he's finally ducking his head.

"Yes he does," Stephen protests. "We hang out all the time."

"I'm not _his_ friend. He's not…" Jimmy stops himself and stands up. The heat and speed has run out of him, and he can hear himself talk, now. He doesn't want to say anything more than he already has. "Just, never mind."

Stephen lets him walk all the way to the staircase before running over and jumping onto the first step, blocking his way upstairs.

"You're my best friend and that's not going to stop in college," Stephen says, firmly, tilting his chin up just a little.

And Jimmy wants to believe it. He does. He grips the stair railing and holds on tight.

"So you still wanna live in an apartment together after we move out of the dorms?" he asks, his heart hammering.

Stephen's eyes brighten. "Yes. Absolutely, yes."

"And Jon would be okay with that?"

That makes Stephen falter.

Jimmy lets go of the stair railing. But his heart is still pounding. "Ask him and get back to me," he says. He shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. "My head hurts. I need to get some aspirin."

Stephen shuffles to the side and lets him walk up the stairs.


	6. It's Time to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.

_Stephen sometimes goes to the old house in the woods when nobody's around. There's still a chair in there that they made out of boxes, back when everybody came out here all the time to play, and their parents didn't know about it._

 _He sits on the boxes and looks up at the sky. There's no roof left anymore. It must have gotten torn off during a windy storm._

 _After a while, he digs around in the dirt and leaves, looking for the floorboard they carved their names into with Denis's first Swiss army knife, the one it took them a month to talk him into letting anyone else touch. But he can't find it. That floorboard must have rotted away._

\---

When Stephen gets home, he eats a snack with his mom and then walks down the block to knock on Amy's door. Nobody answers, so he walks across the cul-de-sac to knock on Paul's door, and it only takes a couple of minutes before the door swings open.

"Um," he says, blinking. Paul has orange glitter in his hair. A lot of orange glitter.

Paul grins at him. "Hi!" he says, and reaches out to hug Stephen with one arm. But some of the glitter falls out of his hair and he seems to realize that he's a walking craft factory. "Oh, Amy and I are making Halloween invitations."

"Oh," Stephen says, hesitating.

The invitations for trick-or-treating and the pre and post parties. Amy and Paul are hosting it this year. Well, Paul is hosting it, because his back porch is big enough to hold them all, and it's screened in. And if they're making invitations, then they must be making decorations, too.

"You… okay?" Paul asks, reaching out to touch Stephen's shoulder. "You look a little pale."

Stephen swallows. "I guess it's just cold out here," he says. He makes himself smile, and reaches up to ruffle Paul's curls, dusting some glitter out. Paul grins. "Can I come in?"

"Sure. Amy's gonna make you glue stuff, though." Paul steps back from the door.

Stephen steps in, taking his shoes off and leaving them on the rack the Dinellos keep next to the door. "I can glue."

The two of them have spread newspapers all over the floor of the den, and masking-taped them together so you don't kick half of them up when you walk across the room. Amy's bent in concentration over a length of ribbon, and Stephen settles in silently next to her, watching her cut the ribbon with a scissor edge to make it curl.

"Hey sweetie," she says, without looking up. Her tongue is poking out of the corner of her mouth. "You wanna help us decorate the pumpkins?"

"Pumpkins?"

Paul holds up a paper bag and rattles it. Leaning over, Stephen peers in and sees a bunch of palm-sized plastic pumpkins inside. Some are orange and some are white. "We're painting faces on them and leaving them on everybody's doorsteps to weigh down the invitations. If they don't answer when we knock."

"Cool." Stephen lifts one out and looks around for the paints. The first one he picks up is a three-pack that hasn't been unwrapped yet. "Silver, white, and gold?" he asks.

"Oh, uh… Wrong one," Paul says, plucking it out of his hand and tossing it into the corner. He hands Stephen a black tube of paint and Stephen finds the paintbrush before he does.

Amy sets her curled ribbon aside and pats Stephen's knee. "Just have fun with it."

Nodding, Stephen uncaps the black paint and squeezes some out on a paper plate.

Then he holds the pumpkin up and tries to think of what Jon would like… but that makes him blush, and think of Jimmy, except he can't think of what Jimmy would like either. He sets his brush back down and spins the pumpkin between his fingers. Maybe painting Denis's pumpkin would be easiest.

Five minutes later, Paul nudges him. "If you'd rather write people's names on the envelopes, you can do that too," he says, gently.

"No, I'm almost done," Stephen says, blinking. He has one eye done and he just needs to do the other eye and then … the rest of the face. He swallows and dips his paintbrush back in the black paint, making a couple of quick swipes that could pass for ears.

"Are you feeling okay, sweetie?" Amy asks. She has plastic black and orange spider rings on all of her fingers.

Stephen messes up on the other eye, and paints it over so it looks like the pumpkin is winking. He might end up giving this one to himself just to avoid feeling guilty about it. When he doesn't say anything right away, Paul puts down his scissors and moves over, draping an arm across Stephen's shoulders, and Amy shuffles forwards to ruffle his hair.

He wishes he could be more like them. Or a year older. If everybody was the same age, all of this would probably be easier.

"Have you two decided where you're going to college?" he finally asks.

"We're not," Paul says, and then glances at Amy like he might flinch.

But Amy just tilts her head to one side. "We're going to work for a while and then apply to Second City. Why?"

Stephen stares at them, amazed. "You're not going to school?" he asks, looking between them. Both of them just smile at him a little. "But… what about your parents?"

"You've met my mom, haven't you?" Amy teases. She tweaks his nose and Stephen's pretty sure that she leaves some smears of glitter behind. "Besides, since David had trouble in school… she pretty much says, if I have something I know that'd actually make me happy, don't waste my time doing something people tell me I should do."

So… they're not going to college. Which means they can go to _any_ city and they don't even have to stay in the country as long as they have work, and Stephen puts his paintbrush down before he makes the face on this pumpkin look any worse.

Paul nudges him. "Janeane's talk get to you?" he asks.

"No. Well. Yes. Kinda." Stephen bites his lip, and puts his hands into his lap and pulls at his jeans until Paul gently curls a hand around one of his wrists and lifts his hand. "Would you two mind living with me, after high school?" he blurts.

That makes Paul's eyes go wide and Amy pull the ribbons off her neck. "Don't let Janeane scare you off school, hon," Amy says, leaning in to squeeze his shoulder. "I know you want to--"

"I mean, no, I mean…" Stephen stammers, turning pink. He should have tried thinking about what he was going to say, like he thought about what he was going to say to Jon (even though he spaced out during most of history for it). "I mean. If you were living together. Like. Like a couple. Would it be weird to have me living with you too?"

Amy puts her elbows on her knees. "No," she says. "You're our friend."

"Is this about Jimmy?" Paul asks. Stephen flushes bright red and Paul brushes some glitter off of his face. "'Cause, I dunno. Jon seems like he'd be fine with it."

Stephen looks down. "Being fine with it and actually liking it are different, though," he says. It hurts to think about Jimmy saying that Jon doesn't like him. Because Stephen's never thought that. But if Jimmy's thought it for years, then, that's just. That just kills him.

They look at each other and Amy sighs softly. "That's something you'll have to talk to Jon about, sweetie."

Stephen picks up his pumpkin and stares at it. "Yeah," he murmurs. Except Jon seems to have as much faith in him as Jimmy does, so he doesn't know how to call him up to talk about it.

But he does know not talking about it is why everybody's having problems in the first place.

Maybe when he manages to make a decent-looking pumpkin, he'll text them.

\---

 _Once, Janeane got stuck in the tree in Denis's front yard, and they had been forced to wait a whole hour for Denis's Da to get home before she could get down safely. It's not that she was_ scared, _but Denis and Denis's Ma had been worried, so she'd stayed put._

 _She'd even promised that she wasn't ever going to climb to the top of the tree again, even before Denis had hugged her. And then she'd let him hold her hand for the rest of the afternoon. Just to help him feel better._

 _It had been nice to hold Denis's hand, except when she'd had to yell at Kiwi for asking if they were going to get married and he made Denis turn red like a tomato._

\---

The seats at the movie theater are weird, like long booths, so she and Denis are sitting together with no armrests in their section. When Denis puts his arm around her shoulders Janeane figures it's just because there's nowhere else for him to rest. The tables are so small their plates barely fit, let alone their elbows.

Plus, it's cold in there, and he's kind of warm.

"I like the slow zombies better, personally," she whispers to him halfway through the film. Though she wouldn't have minded being an extra in this movie if it meant running around with zombie makeup on. "Scarier when you know they're coming and just won't stop."

Denis curls his hand around her shoulder. "You've got short legs, though," he whispers back. "At least you'd stand a chance with the walking ones. The running ones would have you in a second."

Janeane gives him a courtesy kick to the leg and snickers. "What, I couldn't just ride on your back?"

A slow smile curls over Denis's face and the person next to them clears their throat loudly. They shut up until the leading lady gets a huge bite to her calf and Janeane can't help but shout about how everybody always writes out the good characters. Denis ducks his head over his coffee and laughs until the person next to them clears their throat three times. Then Denis stuffs a bite of pancake into his mouth to quiet himself down.

It's mean, but Janeane keeps whispering into Denis's ear about how progressively bad the movie is becoming as their favorite characters get killed off, until he's run out of pancakes and just has to fold his arms on the table and bury his face in his sleeves to muffle himself. It's mean but hilarious, anyway.

Janeane ruffles his hair as the lights come up. "C'mon, let's get out of here before the guy next to us decides to come over and throw his drink in our faces," she says. She tugs at the back of Denis's shirt until he lifts his head and slides out of the booth, following her up the stairs and out into the lobby.

"Well, it was a good movie, basically," Denis says. He stops to get a sip of water at the fountain and wets his palm under the water before running his fingers through his hair. His hair stays slicked back for about ten seconds before flopping forward again.

"Did you even see the last scene?" Janeane teases. She grabs his sleeve while he's blushing and tugs him out of the lobby, where it's crowded and noisy.

The bright, tinny lights inside seem doused the second the doors swing shut behind them. Janeane reflexively zips up her jacket, though it's not until they're halfway to the car that the first gust of cold wind whacks into them.

She jogs the last few steps to the car and falls onto the back door, smacking her palms up against the window. Her jacket was fine for inside the theater, but at eleven at night in a dark parking lot it's not doing much.

When Denis doesn't come around her side to unlock the driver's door, she turns around and peers up at him. He's standing close enough that if she stretches her arm out, she can brush her fingers against the front of his shirt.

"Worried there might be zombies out here?" she asks.

Denis reaches down and touches his hand to her wrist, brushing his thumb over her hand. "Is it okay if I kiss you?" he asks, quietly.

Janeane blinks. "What?"

\---

Denis sits on his trunk, heels resting on the bumper of the car, and thinks about locking himself inside and letting Janeane drive home. Eventually Kiwi would come let him out if she left the car sitting in the driveway. He'd probably even still have a little air left.

He thinks Janeane might be more embarrassed than him, but he can't actually make a bet on that because she went into the coffee shop across the parking lot from the movie theater ten minutes ago and he can't remember, in all the things that she mumbled, if she said whether she'd be coming back or not.

But he can't leave if she might be coming back. Until he sees her mom's car or Jon's car or … somebody's car driving up in front of the coffee shop, he'll stay right where he is. He _is_ sure Janeane didn't invite him to follow her.

After a while he takes his cell phone out of his pocket.

 _To: Jonny_ (11:26 p.m.)  
Blew it.

Then he sticks it back inside his jacket and pulls the ends of his sleeves over his hands, so his fingers won't hurt so bad from the wind. When it shakes a minute later, he ignores it, and he doesn't pick it up until it's shaking so much he thinks he might be getting an actual call. Turns out Jon just sent a couple of messages at once.

 _From: Jonny_ (11:28 p.m.)  
???? Are u okay?

 _From: Jonny_ (11:32 p.m.)  
It's okay if you're not. Get back to me?

 _From: Jonny_ (11:38 p.m.)  
Freaking me out here.

 _From: Jonny_ (11:38 p.m.)  
Don't u dare do something stupid.

Denis scrolls through them and wets his lips, which turns out to be a bad idea (like he has good ones) because he can feel his lips starting to chap in the cold. But he doesn't have any chap stick, so he just punches back the first answer he can think of.

 _To: Jonny_ (11:39 p.m.)  
M'fine. Just waiting. She had to be alone. I guess.

 _From: Jonny_ (11:39 p.m.)  
Sorry, buddy. U wanna come over?

Denis curls both his hands around his phone, so they block out the light from the screen, and rocks his feet back and forth on the bumper for a second, but stops when his shoes squeak. He glances over at the coffee shop, not sure if he wants to see Mrs. Garofalo's car there or not.

There's no car parked there, but he does see Janeane standing on the sidewalk in front of the shop, waiting for some traffic to clear so she can walk forward. He looks down at his knees

 _To: Jonny_ (11:41 p.m.)  
Maybe. Gtg for now.

 _To: Jonny_ (11:41 p.m.)  
Thanks.

The next buzz in his pocket is probably _you're welcome_ , but Denis leaves it for later. He slides off the trunk and scuffs his shoes against the pavement until he can hear Janeane's footsteps are close enough for her to be in talking distance, and then he takes a breath and says "I'm sorry."

Janeane stops. "Why?"

Denis kicks the concrete again. "For being a jerk."

"You weren't a jerk," Janeane mutters, but he's not sure if she's just saying that to make him feel better or not. Even though Janeane usually doesn't lie just to make people feel better.

She nudges his arm and he glances over to see she's carrying two big coffees, though he's still too nervous to look up at her face. He carefully takes the one she's offering and just … holds it. So it'll warm his hands up.

"I mean, you could've just … done it without asking," she says, standing at his side. And since she can't even say the words, Denis stomach's twists. "Or driven off when I stomped away." She stops herself and takes a big breath. "I mean. I would've understood. If you drove off. Especially when I took so long," she says.

"I wasn't gonna leave unless I saw someone picking you up," Denis says. He wonders what kind of coffee it is, but it feels too hot to drink yet. He runs his thumb over the seam in the label. "And I. I didn't know if you even liked kissing."

They've never talked about it. Not… They _have_ talked about, her not liking people that way. Denis has known about that for years. But it's not like he's asked her about her … preferences. And the talks she gives to the club at school every year are in general terms, not specific.

Janeane drops against the bumper. "I don't _know_ if I like kissing," she says. She presses her lips together. "Sorry for running off."

"Oh." Denis pauses. "You don't have to be sorry," he says, instead of asking about the other thing. Asking questions doesn't seem to be going well for him tonight.

Janeane sips at her coffee. "I didn't know you liked me," she says, softly. Denis can't tell so well from the parking lot lights, which are few and far between, but he thinks she might be blushing.

"I didn't want you to," he mumbles. He wishes they could not talk about this. But he tentatively sips his coffee, and it's caramel, which is his favorite. "I thought … if you didn't like me back. Or if you weren't. If you didn't like people romantically. Then I'd mess everything up." He takes a breath. "I'm … I'm sorry. I hope I haven't messed everything up," he says, clenching his cup.

Janeane lowers her coffee. "Yes. You've messed everything up," she says, flatly and without tone. "That's why I bought you a coffee the size of your head."

The corner of Denis's mouth twitches but he doesn't laugh. "I won't be creepy about it," he murmurs. He starts picking at the label on his cup. "I promise. I'll … get over it," he says, slowly. It's an order he's been giving himself for months and he guesses this'll finally make him take it seriously for once.

Next to him, Janeane chews on her lower lip. "I … don't know if I want you to. Get over it," she says. She sweeps a piece of hair behind her ear.

Denis just stares at her, teetering on his heels, half-resting on the back of the car.

"That's probably not fair to say. But I. I don't know what I want, Denis," she says, pronouncing each word carefully.

"That's… okay," Denis says. He hesitates, then covers her hand with his. Because friends do that, too, and he knows that at least he's still her friend. She promised he hadn't messed things up that badly. The coffee in his other hand is that promise.

Janeane clasps his hand back. "Everybody says you just _know_ , but I … I don't. I don't know either way," she says. She puts her coffee down on the trunk and touches her stomach, and that's how Denis knows she's hurting.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. She starts to talk and he shakes his head. "That you hurt. I'm sorry you're hurting," he explains.

She looks up at him, but in the weird parking lot lighting her eyes are black. "Are we still going to talk in college?" she asks, her voice suddenly strained.

Denis blushes a little and then Janeane tugs on his hand, and the look she gives him makes it too hard not to just tell her. "I … kinda wanna go to the same college as you," he says. "Unless you go to that all-women one. They won't let me in there."

"I absolutely do not want to go there," Janeane says. "I _do_ know that."

She holds his hand so tight it hurts, and Denis smiles.


	7. It's Time to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.

_On his eleventh birthday Jimmy is so sick that he cannot get out of bed, but he still wants to have a party. His mom says that they can't bring the family over, but he begs her to call Stephen and Jon, because he's fevery and tired and sad and he wants to see his friends._

 _She says she'll call, but they can't stay for too long or they might get sick too. That just makes him sadder, and he presses his face into his pillow._

 _Jon gets there first, and he seems awkward, twirling his gift in his hands and standing in the doorway. Jimmy tries to say hello, but then he starts coughing and can't talk. Jon comes over and sits down on the bed, covering Jimmy's hand with his until Jimmy can breathe again._

 _Then Stephen is there and he and Jon tell him silly stories until he falls asleep._

 _Later Jimmy doesn't remember much about his eleventh birthday but he likes to think he didn't imagine Jon being his friend even when Stephen wasn't there._

\---

When Mrs. Colbert is at home, she kind of gives them weird smiles when they go to Stephen's room, so Jon is really glad that she's out with friends when he comes over. It took him a minute to decide to come when Stephen called, and he feels weird, like he hasn't been in the house for a really long time, when he follows Stephen up the stairs to his room.

Then he feels ridiculous when he lays down on Stephen's bed and Stephen just sits. But before Jon can sit up, too, Stephen lays down and lets Jon put an arm around him. Stephen touches the front of Jon's shirt and absently smoothes it out.

"Hi," Jon says, when Stephen hasn't said anything for a few minutes. Stephen giggles so hard he hiccups, and Jon runs a hand over his back. "I put together the list for you. Um. It's kind of big."

When Stephen looks up at him next, he pushes his glasses up to the top of his head. "I guess we have a lot to talk about," he says. He curls a hand over the back of Jon's neck and Jon lets his eyes flutter shut for a moment. He thinks Stephen might kiss him, but Stephen just touches their foreheads together. Jon swallows. "I'm sorry I've been avoiding you," Stephen says.

"You haven't been avoiding me," Jon says. He shifts his arm so he can wrap his fingers around Stephen's elbow.

"Yes I have." Stephen threads his fingers through the wispy hair on the back of Jon's neck. "I haven't talked to you about school at all. Jimmy's talked you more about college than I have."

Jon considers that for a moment. He has talked about college to Jimmy about … well … nearly every time he's seen Jimmy recently. But Jimmy always seemed interested and curious and enthusiastic about it, and it's easy to talk to somebody like that. And … Jimmy never turned it into a "so what are you planning to do with _the rest of your life?_ " conversation. Which he can't say for his relatives.

He wets his lips. "I guess… I mean. I'm nervous too," he says. "I don't know what I want to study and I don't know who I'm going to live with, if Denis doesn't go to the same school as I do." He sighs and shifts, his knees bumping against Stephen's. "But it'd be unfair to leave him without a roommate, when, you know…"

"We wouldn't have to leave him without a roommate." Stephen picks at the front of Jon's shirt with his free hand. He looks up and meets Jon's eyes. "I want to live with you," he says.

Jon blinks. "I want to live with you too."

"We've never actually said that before," Stephen says, biting down on his lip. "I want … I want to live with you because I love you," he says, and Jon starts to open his mouth but Stephen shakes his head slightly. "But you want to live with Denis because you love him too. And I … I love Jimmy," he says. Then he holds his breath.

The back of Jon's head aches a little, but he shuts his eyes and concentrates on the feel of Stephen's hand still tangled in his hair. He tries to imagine moving in with Stephen -- it's not like he hasn't before, but… This time he pictures them being alone. Not being able to hear Stephen and Jimmy laughing all the time and not having Denis to grouch at when he doesn't want to study or get off the couch.

And Stephen still isn't breathing. Jon tilts his head back and kisses Stephen's nose. The ache at the back of his head recedes a bit. "I … It's not that I don't want to be with you. I love you," he says, softly. "But it's never just been us and I don't know what that would be like. Maybe we're … maybe we need more time before we can do that. Would it really be okay with you?"

"It would be okay," Stephen says. He stops and squeezes his eyes shut, and his face looks so different than when he does that with his glasses on. "I don't know how to picture my life in twenty years without you. But I can't see it without Jimmy, either," he whispers.

Jon hesitates. "I … can't picture anything that far," he admits. He swallows. "My family keeps asking me about what I'm going to do and I don't know and they act like I should. But I don't and I just. I don't want to be alone," he finally says.

"Does it bother you that I want Jimmy there?"

"I'm not … jealous, if that's what you mean," Jon says. He remembers Jimmy sitting on the other end of the bed and shifts awkwardly. "Would he be okay with that?"

Stephen blinks. "Sure."

The tips of Jon's ears turn pink. "I just thought maybe he felt kinda uncomfortable whenever you and me, um."

"We don't have to share a bedroom with him, Jon," Stephen teases, and Jon flushes from pink to red. Stephen bumps their heads together. "I mean, it'd be weird if we made out in front of him," he says. He tugs at Jon's shirt. "But he's said he doesn't care if we hug or kiss. As long as we're not just … sitting around and ignoring him."

"Like we were the other afternoon?" Jon asks, queasy.

Stephen's eyes soften. "Yeah. I should've… done things differently. Instead of just talking at you."

"I could've said more." They'd been the ones to make Jimmy the odd man out.

They sit there for a while, and Stephen ends up cuddling close enough to tuck his head against Jon's neck. It's nice, and calm, even though Stephen's bed is kind of cramped. And Stephen's thumb is pressing into the base of Jon's neck.

"I think Denis and Janeane are going to end up going to school in Chicago or Boston," Jon finally says. And right now that's the only thing in the world that he can think of to narrow down his list of schools.

Stephen snuggles closer. "We could talk to Jimmy about it?" he suggests.

The two of them sit there for so long that Jon almost wishes they'd left the window open to let some cool air in. But at least being warm because of Stephen isn't a bad kind of warm. And it's something Jon wouldn't mind getting used to, anyway.

"Maybe let me do it. I … I should talk to Jimmy more," Jon says.

Stephen smiles at him. "Okay."

\---

"I need to go to my locker," Stephen blurts, when they reach the outside doors.

Jimmy blinks and turns around with one hand still on the door handle. "I thought you went to your locker before you met me."

Shuffling in place, Stephen tugs at the straps on his book bag. "I forgot," he says. He meets Jimmy's eyes for a second and then clears his throat, turning to look over his shoulder. "So, uh, you go ahead, and I'll catch up?" he asks.

Maybe he has to ask a teacher a question and is embarrassed about it, or something, because Stephen never forgets to go to his locker -- it's on his walk from class to meet Jimmy -- but Jimmy just shrugs. "Okay. I'll just wait with Jon."

Before he jogs off, Stephen gives him a double thumbs-up, which makes Jimmy laugh a little as he heads outside.

He has on a sweatshirt because it's getting to the point where it's threatening cold rain every day, but the sky is pretty clear as he walks over to Jon's car. Jon is wearing soccer shorts and a t-shirt and Jimmy doesn't know how he's not shivering while he sits on the trunk.

"Hi. Stephen's going back to his locker," Jimmy says. He skids on the gravel a bit when he tries to slow down from his jog and Jon jumps up, grabbing his wrist so he doesn't fall. Jimmy hesitates, then smiles sheepishly. "Thanks."

Jon lets out a breath and shoves his hands in his pockets. "It's okay." He kicks at the gravel and Jimmy fiddles with the straps on his book bag. "Actually, um, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Oh.

Jimmy's stomach sinks and he slides his book bag off his back, holding it to his chest because it makes him feel better, even though at this time of day there are pounds and pounds of books inside. So… Stephen must have talked to Jon. And then he didn't want to be around when Jon talked to Jimmy about it.

Part of him wishes he'd never said anything to Stephen in the first place. He swallows and nods, then says, "Yeah," when Jon just looks uncertainly at him.

Taking a deep breath, Jon puts his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. His fingers are freezing, even through Jimmy's sweatshirt. "Stephen came over to my house yesterday and we talked about college and stuff," he says. It sounds kind of like he rehearsed it. Jimmy wants to pull away from him and his cold hand, but he can't make his legs move. "And we agreed… I mean, I thought… I want to talk about it with you, too."

"Oh," Jimmy says. He doesn't feel any better because he has no idea what that means.

Jon looks at his hand and then lets go of him, running his fingers through his hair. "So, um. I don't really know what I want from a school," he says, which at least isn't, _"And you need to walk home today."_ "But it's kind of important to me to go to school with Denis. And I'm pretty sure he'll end up somewhere in Chicago or Boston." He falters. "Do you … would that be okay?"

It takes a moment for Jimmy to realize Jon's stopped talking. "You're … asking my opinion?" he asks, blinking. And Stephen isn't here?

"Yeah." Jon kicks the gravel again. "And, you know. Say whatever you want. Feel."

Jimmy looks up at the school, but he doesn't see Stephen coming down the stairs of the parking lot. He doesn't see Stephen at all, and…

"I really don't want to live in Boston," he blurts, and the sides of his stomach clench when he admits it. He takes a breath and meets Jon's eyes, but Jon doesn't look mad, or worried, or annoyed. Jimmy takes a breath. "But Chicago would be okay. It has cool stuff."

Jon nods. And he rubs a hand up and down his arm, which makes Jimmy wonder if he's finally getting cold. "Okay. So. I'll … apply to a bunch of schools around there, then," he says, smiling a little. Then he glances up at the stairs like Jimmy just had. "And, uh…"

"Yeah?" Jimmy asks.

He doesn't know what's happening but he does think it feels good. Probably. At least, if his head would stop spinning. He doesn't have to tag along to whatever city Jon and Stephen want. He got to say what city _he_ wanted. And … Jon cared about what he said.

"Stephen said you didn't hate it when we hug and kiss in front of you but you looked so uncomfortable the other day that I just, I had to ask, I mean, I don't … I don't want to weird you out," Jon says, ducking his head lower and lower the faster he talks. "Especially when we're roommates."

Jimmy puts his book bag down on the trunk to keep his arms from wearing out. He wants to sit down, but he also doesn't want to freeze his ass off, so he just shifts his weight.

"So Stephen said it was okay and you still wanted to ask me?"

Jon nods, glancing up. He reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, waiting.

"And you think it'd be okay if we were roommates?"

Jon nods again.

Jimmy jumps forward and hugs Jon before he can think himself out of it. Jon loses his balance a little for a second, but he stretches out his arms and hugs him back, anyway. It's awkward and neither of them know what to do with their arms, but it's the first time Jimmy can remember ever hugging Jon and he's just so glad not to be pushed away.

After a moment they hear Stephen clearing his throat, and they let go of each other so they can look over where Stephen is standing at the bottom of the stairs, with his math textbook in one hand and a huge smile on his face.

"So it went okay?"

\---

 _The woods behind the Colbert house were always good for camping. Amy always wears her boots and a floppy hat and makes everybody pretend that they don't know she's taking pictures of them._

 _The last time they camp out, somebody knocks the electric lantern over and the bulb gets loose. Amy walks her fingers up somebody's arm and kisses his cheek, and Denis chokes so hard that she almost dies from embarrassment while she's explaining she thought he was Paul. They've both got hairy arms._

 _They're supposed to be telling scary stories once they get the lantern back on, but Jimmy and Stephen just get into a contest to see who can make Jon laugh the hardest, and Janeane's the only one who doesn't panic when Jon has an asthma attack and needs his inhaler._

 _All in all it's a pretty good trip._

\---

"Where'd you get that?"

Stephen is hot and sweaty just from sitting in the audience on the football field, so he can't imagine how gross everybody else feels since they were all stuck in graduation robes. But he still stops in the doorway of the den with only Amy and Jimmy ahead of him, because his eyes are stuck to the pile of party stuff in the corner.

Amy stares at him for a moment and looks over to the corner of the room. "What, the horns? That party shop up in town."

"No, no!"

Stephen darts forward just before Denis reaches out to nudge him forward, and digs the board out of the pile of party things while the others stream into the room and start tugging their robes off. Jimmy follows him, but there's not room for him to lean over and help. It takes a minute to get it out safely, because it's heavier than Stephen would've imagined, but he picks it up and manages to turn around with it without whacking Jimmy in the arm.

"Where did you _get_ this?" Stephen asks again. The board isn't cutting into his hands. Actually, when he runs his fingers over the surface, it's all smooth and sealed, like something you'd get from a store.

Amy's sitting on the ground unlacing the heels she wore for graduation. Her robe's tossed over the back of the couch and her dress is all wrinkled. She looks up at Stephen and tilts her head to one side. "The last time we went out to that house all together I took it home. My dad finished it up so we could keep it. Why?"

Stephen opens and shuts his mouth wordlessly and hugs the board to his chest.

It's longer than he remembered, and obviously heavier -- not that he spent a lot of time prying up the floorboards in that place -- but it stays balanced when he puts it down on the arm of the loveseat. Mr. Sedaris must have sanded the edges before he finished it. Stephen steps back so he can look at it better. Jimmy links his arm through his so hesitantly that Stephen yanks him close and kisses his cheek, making him giggle.

Amy shakes her head. "I'm gonna go put the camera up. Come out when you're done gawking."

Their names are in random order, and not all facing the same direction, but they're all cut pretty deep so it's still easy to read the names, even under the finish. Stephen can still see the spiral Denis cut into the wood at the corner to make sure his knife wouldn't chip when they wrote their names down.

"Oh, hey," Janeane says, walking up to Stephen's other side. Her hair's all curled and wispy and still looks neat, even though she's already yanked her robe off over her head. She stares at the board for a moment and then a little smile curls over her face. "Huh. Denis, c'mere!"

When Denis comes over he's still wearing the bright blue robe that's a little too short on him, and Stephen suspects got passed down from Kiwi. He laces his fingers through Janeane's and shakes his head at the board. Jimmy elbows Stephen and Stephen grins a little.

"You guys would not shut up about using my knife for this thing," Denis says. "Once I almost told you I lost it just to see if you'd give up."

"Your poor old knife survived," Janeane drawls. "I remember, because the summer after that you and Kiwi were throwing it and you ended up having to get four stitches in your thumb." Stephen and Jimmy both giggle and duck their heads when Denis sends a good-natured glare their way.

Jon walks up and lays both his arms around Stephen and Jimmy's shoulders, resting behind them. He took his robe off and, when Stephen glances back, sees that he started undoing his tie but got stopped by somebody -- probably Amy, Stephen guesses. In a few minutes they're going to take pictures and then set up the party and eat way too much. But Amy and Mrs. Sedaris made cupcakes, and even when he's sick, Stephen always eats their cupcakes.

He kisses Stephen's cheek and squeezes Jimmy's shoulder, then asks, "Hey, did Stephen tell you that place is haunted now?" which makes Stephen turn bright red.

"Naw, really? Should we go say hi?" Denis asks, snickering.

Stephen sticks his tongue out. "You're just jealous because you never saw it," he declares. He folds his arms over his chest for good measure.

Denis grins a little at him and leans over Janeane to ruffle his hair. "C'mon, you can't shit another Irish guy. We've all seen ghosts, Colbert."

"Really?" Jimmy asks, wide-eyed. "You've seen a ghost, Denis?"

But before Denis can do more than open his mouth, Paul barrels past them and grabs up the board, his new short hair (which Stephen still doesn't like but would never say out loud) all flattened out from where he'd tugged his cap on too tight. "Group picture?" he suggests, holding it up a little.

"Not if Amy and I have to sit on the ground again," Janeane says. But she tugs on Denis's hand and leads him out to the backyard, where Amy went with the camera and tripod.

Jon stretches his arms above his head and grunts. "I'll sit on the ground with you!" he yells, pushing Jimmy and Stephen out of the den.

Just before they reach the porch Amy ducks her head in the back door, beaming. "Hey, grab robes for Jimmy and Stephen so we can make sure we all have pictures of us with them!"

\---

A couple of weeks later they all get copies of the photos in the mail. Real, printed copies, which is nice, and a lot of which end up on bedroom walls that year because Amy's pretty good at making them all hold still for photos.

The photos come plus a few in the back. Amy and Paul in their graduation clothes, but not in the Sedaris's backyard or even the football field from school.

It takes a couple of minutes for Stephen to recognize city hall, but when he does he laughs so hard he falls out of his chair. And Jimmy's already gotten to the photos from Niagara Falls by the time Stephen composes himself enough to call.

On the back of the last photo, in Paul's handwriting, there's a note:

 _I was gonna change my last name but Amy punched me in the shoulder and told me Dinello was a good stage name. And she didn't want people to confuse me with her brother._

"You and Jon better not pull a stunt like this," Jimmy warns him, even though he's laughing.

Stephen shakes his head. "No way," he promises. "Besides, Amy would accuse us of copying."

\---

 _When Janeane and her family move to the new house in kindergarten, she tells her mom she hates this place more than_ anything _and she wants to go back home. Her mom takes her hand and walks her to the mouth of the neighborhood, then watches as she walks the last block and crosses the street to the school._

 _Janeane stands at the crosswalk and yells "I'm never going to make any friends here!"_

 _Her mom waves and shouts "Yes you will!"_

 _To Mrs. Garofalo's credit, she never says "I told you so."_


End file.
